Lady Raiders overcome halftime deficit to defeat Lansing Catholic

On Friday night, the Portland girls basketball team traveled to Lansing Catholic to face the Cougars in the rivals second match-up of the season.

The Lady Raiders won the first contest back on February 9th by a score of 54-33. In that game junior Ashley Bower led Portland with 30 points.

In this second show down, the Cougars were bound and determined to keep the ball out of Bower’s hands. They tried accomplishing this by keeping one of their defenders within inches of Bower at all times when Portland was on offense.

The Cougars came out strong to start the game and entered the halftime break with a 25-22 lead over Portland.

While Lansing Catholic was successful in limiting Bower to only five points on Friday night, several of Bower’s teammates proved to dangerous offensively in their own right.

Portland outscored the Cougars 23 to 10 in the second half of play with a balanced offensive attack. The Raiders held Lansing Catholic to only two points in the fourth quarter of play. The game ended with Portland victorious 45-35.

Junior Ava Guilford led the Raiders with 13 points. Senior Ava Gruber added 12 points.

Other Portland players to score included:

· Junior Alivia Densmore - 8 points

· Junior Breckyn Werner – 5 points

· Junior Shalyn Dziewiatkowski – 2 points

Freshman Anna Richards led the Cougars with 14 points.

Scoring by quarter:

1st – 2nd – 3rd – 4th – Final

Portland 10 – 12 – 15 – 8 – 45

Lansing Catholic 13 – 12 – 8 – 2 – 35

With Friday night’s win, Portland moves to 6-1 overall, 5-0 in the CAAC White. With only three CAAC White contests left on the regular season schedule, the Lady Raiders are currently in the driver’s seat for the conference.

The Cougars move to 4-2 overall, 2-2 in the CAAC White.

Portland will host a strong Williamston squad (5-1) on Saturday.

Photo by AJ Guilford.