Ranger basketball heats up the hardwood
John Kastner
As football made its curtain finale, things have really heated up on the hardwood floor and the debut of the fast pace, bucket-to-bucket affair didn't take long to make some resounding claims of who will take home a cage crown when all the dust clears in February.
The Smithson Valley Lady Rangers wasted little time in beating a good Fredericksburg five, 36-33, behind the awesome shooting of Morgan Craig, who canned 13 buckets while Seneca Guenther contributed 6 for the Rangers.
In their second conference game of the season, the Lady Rangers dropped a 50-35 decision to hot-shooting Madison in a game that saw the Rangers offense going to the freezer early. Madison's defense couldn't stop the surging shooting of Jenny Johnson, who donated 20 points and against Halee Gordon, who pushed in 9 hoops for the Rangers.
Currently, Taft remains the no. 1 unit in 27-5A with (18-1), Warren ranks No. 3 at (14-4), Churchill trails at No. 4 with (13-6) and Judson comes in No. 8 with (12-7).
The Rangers are ranked No. 7 in scoring defense and free throws at 17-680-40 and 167-278-601, respectively. Halee Gordon is No. 5 in free throws at 26-33-788.
The Smithson Valley boys cagers also have played some solid ball the last several days. The latest victory to celebrate came against Fredericksburg when the Rangers played an excellent defense and offense to down the Billies, 51-43 behind the stellar shooting of Sean Henry with 12, Brad Respondek, 11, and Chris Deuel with 10, to up their record to (7-6).
MacArthur remains No. 1 at (19-2), with Warren trailing at No. 2 with (15-3). Further down the list, Judson is ranked No. 6 with (12-3), Taft No. 9 at (15-5) and Reagan No. 10 at (12-8).
Smithson Valley is fifth in field goals with 268-563-473 and second in free throws at 145-204-711. Brad Respondek leads the Rangers in rebounds with 13-120-9 clip and free throws at .846 clip.
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