Raiders earn season’s second win, 50-43

Wins have been hard to come by in recent years for the Hastings girls basketball team, so Thursday night’s nice 50-43 win over New Life Academy was an especially welcome sight.

It wasn’t the Raiders’ best game of the year, but that mattered little. Hastings is now 2-7 on the season.

“It was really nice to get a win,” coach Mike Harp said. “We didn’t really play our best game. We’ve played better games in some of our losses, but we figured out a way to win. We struggled a little bit, but the girls found a way to get a win. That’s important.

We’re talking to the team about learning to win. We made a big step Thursday. We didn’t have our best performance, but we were still able to come out and get a victory.”

Hastings has a very challenging part of the schedule waiting for them just after the holiday break, making Thursday’s win taste even better.

“That was a key thing going into the break – having a win to build on,” Harp said. “We have some tough games coming up, so this was a nice morale boost.”

Hastings didn’t start the game especially well, but by the time the first half was over, Hastings led 29-21.

“We just didn’t start the game out very well – I don’t know what it was,” Harp said. “The girls rallied, though. They pulled it together and started to make some shots. We really picked our play in the second part of the first half.”

Harp said the key was some strong defensive pressure that led to some easy baskets.

“We started to get some steals, and we converted those into easy baskets,” he said.

Morgan Tjomsland led Hastings in scoring with 11 points.

“Morgan had a really nice game,” Harp said. “She stepped up and made some shots. We played some very good defense and she got us some steals. It was nice to see her step up.”

Jill Weinzettel had a big night, too, scoring 9 points.

“Jill made some nice shots for us, too,” Harp said. “It was nice to see these underclassmen step up and make those shots in a big game for us.”

Tjomsland is a junior and Weinzettel is a freshman.

Jordan Marshall finished with 8 points and 10 rebounds, including a key rebound when Hastings led just 45-43 late in the game.

“She had a great game for us,” Harp said.

Also scoring were: Hanna Norman 6, Lexie Harp 5, Nicole Hollar 6, Lauren Thomas 3 and Ashley Bayne 2.

Tags: raider basketball, sports, prep, hastings, minnesota, spiral