Hinsdale Rolling Into Postseason

The Hinsdale Raider girls started the weekend off with a win over the Lustre Christian Lady Lions last Friday evening at home. The Lady Raiders went into the weekend with a 6-2 record in conference and 11-2 overall and are in control of second place behind the Saco/WW Lady Panthers.

The Lady Lions are struggling this season with a 1-8 record as of Saturday.

With the season winding down and tournaments fast approaching, Hinsdale girls head coach Ralph Ellsworth is trying to get his team in shape for a run which, hopefully will end with a trip to Hamilton. Coach told me "my seniors usually step it up a notch this time of year. They'll be ready."

The Lady Raider starters consist of three seniors, a junior and a sophomore. On the bench there is a junior, a freshman and three eighth-graders.

So far this year the starters have been playing, on average, just 16-24 minutes per game and watch the JV players play for the remainder of the game due to the lack of any strong competition...except for Saco/WW of course who are undefeated this season.

Coach Ralph turned his team loose on Lustre and let them take some three point shots but the experiment fell short when the Lady Raiders went 1-15 from behind the arc.

Hinsdale went a perfect 3-3 from the charity stripe and shot a pretty good 18-32 from inside the arc. The final tally was Hinsdale 42 and Lustre 14.

Chadaya Christensen was game high with 16 points most of which were paint buckets. She added six rebounds and three assists. Whitney Molina contributed 14 points which included the teams only 3-pointer. She had six rebounds and seven assists and five steals for a very nice game indeed.

Bethany Lacock scored four points, had nine rebounds and three assists while Courtney Capdeville scored six points and grabbed six rebounds. Delaney Beil rounded out the score hitting two free throws and had four rebounds.

The Raider boys were on fire tonight first with the JV's who whupped-up-on the Lions 50-40 in a very scrappy game that saw freshman Logan McColly go 12-16 mostly from in the paint. He also grappled for eight rebounds. Cache Younkin tallied 8 points, Wrangler Jones hammered home two 3-pointers and a deuce for eight points, Val Robert scored six, Hannes Seifert had two points as well as Austin Leatherberry.

In a game that saw 25 turnovers for the Raiders along with five 3-pointers, 15-25 from the free-throw line and 16-43 from the field, Hinsdale pulled one out of the fire when they almost let Lustre pull the saddle blanket over their ears late in the fourth quarter.

Hinsdale held a one point lead after 16 minutes and got up by nine midway through the fourth but then Lustre put on a move and Hinsdale seemingly just watched for a minute or so and before you could say yikes the Lions had pulled to within two points with little time left.

But calmer heads prevailed and when the final whistle finally whistled, much to the collective relief of the 3,987 fans and players on hand, give or take, the Raiders had secured the victory 52-48.

Dallas Capdeville tallied a smooth 20 points which included a 3-pointer. He also had four rebounds and four assists. Wyatt Pattison scored 12 points, grabbed six rebounds and had one assist. He hit 2-2 from beyond the arc. Kyle Albus saw the same success as Pattison did from deep on his way to nine points, six rebounds and three assists for a very sweet game.

Brett Johnson scored four points and had two assists, Cache Younkin hit a 3-pointer and Logan McColly added two points of his own.

Lukas Johnson proved you don't have to be a high scorer to be a VIP in this game. He only tallied two points, but he was relentless on the boards hauling in, by my count, 16 rebounds, misdirected several Lustre shots while also blocking four of them.

He earned the Star of the Game this week.

The Raiders traveled to Turner on Saturday. Make a long story short....Hinsdale boys and girls won....Turner boys and girls didn't.

That's it for now folks. Thanks for listening.