Red Cloud plays well at White River, stumbles against SF Christian

Red Cloud’s only loss this season was to White River in the LNI champi onship game; Tuesday they came play ing better defense and used a balanced scoring attack, mostly from the paint to pick up their 10th win of the season and exact a small bit of revenge on the Tigers winning the re match in their house 77 63.

“We were just better prepared defen sively this time to deal with a very ex perienced White River team,” said Red Cloud coach, Matt Rama, “we also made better use of our height, our younger players are maturing and making better decisions.”

Although White River closed the gap to two points in the third, Red Cloud prevailed by out rebounding the Tigers 47 23 and a balanced scoring attack featuring eight players chipping in.

Tristen Long led the Crusaders with 18 points, Jeremy Blacksmith had a team high 10 rebounds and eight as sists with seven points, Brandon Two Bulls helped out with 11 points and nine boards. Carl Swallow five of nine from the field for 15 points with seven rebounds and four assists, Kiley We ston helped with 10 points.

On Saturday, Red Cloud faced #1 ranked Sioux Falls Christian in the final game of the Hanson Classic in Mitchell, struggled through a poor shooting night and a few too many turnovers in a 70 55 loss.

“We just don’t have the needed con sistency yet,” said Rama, “we played well on Tuesday against White River but Saturday, we struggled, we did not shoot well, we turned the ball over and just didn’t have the players step up we are maturing but we’re not there where we need to be night in and night out.”

Swallow the started the game shoot ing one for nine before finishing the game with 19 points and eight re bounds, Blacksmith had 11 points.

Red Cloud is now 10 2 and hosts #1 ranked Chadron Saturday at Chadron State College, their third straight game against a number #1 ranked team.