Raider Boys Challenge Late, but Come Up Short to Gladiators

The Portland Raider boys lost to the Gladiators of Fowlerville on Friday night, 59-53.

Score by quarter:

1st 2nd 3rd 4th Final

Portland 9 7 13 22 53

Fowlerville 17 11 9 22 59

Scoring for the Raiders were:

Junior Blake Patrick 15

Senior Dean Battley 10

Sophomore Owen Russell 9

Senior Joshua Salas 4

Senior Bryce Snitgen 4

Junior Tate Dziewiatkowski 4

Sophomore David Svanda 2

Junior Mitch Savage 2

Geofrey Knaggs led the Gladiators with 12 points, followed by Caden Collins with 11.

After the game Raider coach Dave Pettit said, “I thought the first half was the difference. They played a lot harder than we did in the first half. We went down 12 in the first half. We played hard in spurts in the second half… I mean really hard in spurts. But I thought overall, they played just a little bit harder than we did. We just have to figure out a way to play that hard from the tip to the end of the game. The spurts we played were outstanding. That is everyone. We had an offensive group and a defensive group. Kind of everyone did their job.”

Pettit went on to say, “We just can’t fall behind double digits early. We don’t have the offense really to make up that ground. We got it to one possession with about 45 seconds to go, and we just ran out of time outs, and they hit some free throws.”

The Raiders move to 1-12 on the year. They will host 9-3 DeWitt on Tuesday night, and travel to 5-8 Lansing Catholic on Friday.