WYMORE – Playing their third games of the week, the Southern High School basketball teams pulled off a sweep of Deshler on Saturday evening at home, with the Raider girls eking out a narrow win for their first victory of the season and the Raider boys taking control in the middle periods to cruise to victory.  

 

GIRLS BASKETBALL: Southern (1-3) defeats Deshler (1-3) 42-41 

It took the Southern girls until their second-to-last game of the season, in mid-February, to win their first and only game of the 2023-24 season. But after starting the 2024-25 season 0-3, it only took the Raiders until mid-December to earn win number one this time around – though they really had to work to earn it.  

Despite playing the night before, the Raiders were the better team early: Southern led 11-7 after the first quarter and maintained that margin with a 19-15 edge at halftime. The Dragons, fresh off their first win of the season on Thursday, finally began to take flight in the third quarter, scoring nine of the first 12 points to take a 24-22 lead and force Southern into a timeout.  

The Dragons led by one going into the fourth, and then surged in front 34-30 before the Raiders fired back with eight straight points to go back in front 38-34. That matched the largest lead for either side, and set up a photo finish: up by three with five seconds left, Southern’s Reece Barnard was called for an intentional foul, and Jacilyne Peterson hit both free throws to make it a one-point game. Deshler got the ball once more and managed set up a shot from the foul line for Reese Harms at the buzzer – but her shot went just offline, and Southern escaped with a 42-41 win, their first of the season.  

Peterson had an excellent second half for the Dragons and led all players with 18 points. Harms, Deshler’s center, nailed a trio of threes to score 14. A pair of freshmen had strong games throughout, leading the way for Southern in their first win as high schoolers: Emma Eisenhauer made five field goals to score 13 points and point guard Hadlee Maxson added 11.  

 

BOYS BASKETBALL: Southern (2-2) defeats Deshler (2-2) 60-41 

On Friday night, Southern allowed Tri County to escape with its first win of the season. Less than 24 hours later, facing a Deshler team that defeated them a year ago, the Raiders looked like the fresher team, building a big lead over the middle two periods and carrying that to the finish line.  

Southern led for almost all of the game, but, trailing only 19-16 in the second, Deshler had three high quality chances to hit a three-pointer that would have tied the score. The Dragons missed all three times, however, and the Raiders, after surviving that sequence, scored 11 in a row to take command. 

Leading by 13 into the break, Southern opened the third quarter on a 15-4 run to build up their largest lead, 47-23. Star senior Cooper Warford was the story in the first half with 15 points, including a midcourt steal that turned into a fastbreak dunk, but the rest of the Raiders’ cast turned in quality performances in the second half to help Southern, which had won six matchups against Deshler in a row prior to last year, restore some order to the all-time series.  

Center Carson Sieber had a strong game for the Dragons with 13 points, while leading scorer Easton Nash scored 11, but needed a lot of shot attempts to get there. Warford led all players with 20 points, a step better than his 18.8 average from last year, but Southern also got great games from Kale Ames (16 points), Alex Meece (13) and Paxx Adams (seven) in the win.  

 

UP NEXT: Deshler @ Heartland, 5/6:30 PM, on Tuesday, December 17 

                   Southern @ Pawnee City, 6/7:30 PM, on Thursday, December 19 

 

NEXT ON OL RED: Washington @ Hanover, 6/7:30 PM, on Friday, December 20