It seems that often the L-N Boys’ Basketball team opens the season with a win, but drops the second game of the year.

Well . . . that didn’t happen this year. The Raiders entertained Red Cloud last Friday and Thayer Central on Saturday in Nelson and L-N sent them both home on the losing side of the record book.

It’s a long way to the end of the season, but a good beginning is always something to be grateful for. Changing from football to basketball is not always easy and the Raiders still have a ways to go in this sport. But this beginning is as good as anyone could want. The game summaries:

L-N – RED CLOUD: 54-40: It wasn’t pretty at the beginning of this game. The first four minutes were spent getting rid of nervous energy, turnovers, and finding out what fouls would be called by officials. Krayton Kucera opened the season with a 3-point shot early on, and Red Cloud scored once, but for four minutes both teams took a little while to settle down. In the last four minutes, L-N was quite a bit more composed as they made 5 of 8 from the floor, outscoring Red Cloud 13-2 to take the lead they would not give up for the whole game.

Red Cloud recovered somewhat in the 2nd period hitting 4 of 9 field goals and 4 of 5 free throws while L-N struggles a little to score.

The pace of the game seemed to increase in the second half of play. The Raiders did not commit turnovers and just had a little more hustle than Red Cloud to increase their scoring edge.

The Raiders had a nice spread in the scoring. The three upper grades had leaders: Logan Menke (Sr.) led the scoring with 17; Clay Williams (So) had 13 and Krayton Kucera (Jr.) had 12. In all, eight players scored. Nolan Ostdiek led the rebounding effort for L-N with 9, Logan Menke and Tyson Kotinek each had 8 and Krayton Kucera had 6.

It was a good ‘team’ effort in most categories of the game.

L-N 16 9 20 9 - 54

Red Cloud 4 12 16 8 - 40

(Scoring, rebounds, assists): Bayln Bargen 0, 0, 0; Devyn Zikmund 1, 2, 0;Toby Kotinek 0, 3, 1; Krayton Kucera 12, 6, 3; Connor Janda 4, 3, 0; Erik Wheeland 2, 3, 0; Nolan Ostdiek 3, 9, 2; Logan Menke 17, 8, 3; Tyson Kotinek 2, 8, 0; Clay Williams 13, 2, 3; Keaton Mazour 0, 0, 1.

L-N 54, 44, 13; Red Cloud 40, ?, ?.

Three points shots: L/N 6-26: Krayton 4-8, Logan 1-4, Clay 1-5; Red Cloud 3-17.

Free Throws: L-N 8-23: Devyn 1-2, Krayton 0-2, Erik 2-4, Nolan 1-5,Logan 4-6, Tyson 0-4; Red Cloud 13-18.

Fouls: L-N 19; Red Cloud 22.

L-N – THAYER CENTRAL: 49-45: My gosh . . . games like this a person might expect at the end of the season, but the Raiders put on a real exhibition of grit, grime and guts in the second game of the season against Thayer Central (TC) last Saturday evening.

The outcome could not be determined until the final buzzer even though L-N fell behind 11 points in the middle of the second period to the Class D-1 TC. The game had a number of “significant” plays that Raider fans have seen little of in the last few years. For example: a field goal by Krayton with an assist by Tyson Kotinek; example: a Logan Menke lay up on an assist by Bayln Bargen; example: Nolan Ostdiek driving to the basket as he was being squeezed by two defenders; Tyson Kotinek, hitting a 3-pt. shot while the TC defenders all dropped off him and he was left all alone.

After slow starts in both of the first two quarters (it took three minutes before L-N scored at all), the Raiders seemed to have more energy in the last half of play.

Of course, free throws played an important part. For example, after trailing 10-21 in the second period, L-N made 6 of 7 free throws to get back into the game. Then, in the final period, TC made 8 of 11 free throws to keep within a few points of L-N.

There were so many ‘special’ plays by so many players, it is hard to find any specific that stand out.

Unofficially this reporte had Logan Menke as scoring 16 points, but eight players added points to the score board.

It seemed to becoming almost a habit to see, L-N win their first game each year, only to lose the second game. This game broke that hex and an interesting year is in the works.

Score by quarter:

L-N 9 14 13 13 - 49

Thayer Central 11 12 8 14 - 45

(Scoring, rebounds, assists): Bayln Bargen 7, 0, 1; Devyn Zikmund 0, 2, 0;Toby Kotinek 0, 0, 0; Krayton Kucera 6, 0, 1; Connor Janda 2, 3, 0; Erik Wheeland 0, 2, 2; Nolan Ostdiek 6, 4, 2; Logan Menke 16, 8, 1; Tyson Kotinek 3, 1, 2; Wyatt Brockman 0, 1, 0; Clay Williams 6, 3, 1; Keaton Mazour 3, 2, 0.

L-N 49, 26, 10; Thayer Central 45, ?, ?.

Three points shots: L-N 5-15: Bayln 1-3, Logan 2-4, Tyson 1-2, Clay 1-3; Thayer Central 3-11.

Free Throws: L-N 10-18: Bayln 2-2, Toby 0-2, Krayton 2-2, Connor 2-2, Logan 2-4, Tyson 0-2, Clay 1-2, Keaton 1-2; Thayer Central 13-18.

Fouls: L-N 17; Thayer Central 17.

This week the boys travel to Franklin on Friday and play DBS Saturday evening.