Raiders looking to clinch down the stretch

The Rice Raiders are looking to lock up their playoff spot as they prepare for the last couple games of the season.

Aiding them in the quest for a playoff spot was a big win last week over the Palacios Sharks by a score of 50-40.

The Raiders played well against Palacios and showed that they are back on track after those overtime losses. Their athleticism and aggressiveness continued to put opposing teams in uncomfortable situations.

The Raiders defense played well against Palacios and did a great job of playing with on the edge but not crossing the line. They allowed their knowledge and athleticism to control their play and closed out Palacios effectively.

The Raiders then traveled to Edna to take on the Cowboys in Edna and were handed their third loss of the district schedule. That loss dropped the Raiders from 2nd to 3rd place in the district.

Edna is the team to beat in the district right now and the Raiders got a firsthand lesson as to why that is. Edna plays very sound basketball and does not make a lot of mistakes.

The Raiders pride themselves on pressuring teams defensively, forcing them to play uncharacteristically and make mistakes but Edna never took the bait. With the loss the Raiders now are looking for a way to clinch their spot and have a high seed heading into playoffs.

They are only a game back against Yoakum for the 2nd place spot, but the Raiders have a tough stretch of games in front of them if they want to get move back up to that spot.

The Raiders have Industrial, Yoakum and Columbus still on their schedule, which is a very tough schedule. The Raiders have already played all three of these teams, so they know what to expect from each team.

Ironically enough each time the Raiders played those teams the game went to overtime with the Raiders picking up wins over Yoakum and Industrial. So this is not going to be an easy end to the season for the Raiders.

They have the talent to make some noise and silence the doubters, but they must come ready to play in all three of those games if they could drop out of the playoff hunt completely.