Hot shooting Raiders defeat Villisca

CORNING — The Villisca Blue Jays boys basketball season came to an end Thursday night when they lost to the Corning Red Raiders in 1A quarterfinals action, 88-64 in Corning.

The Red Raiders were hot shooting early on, as they took a 22-11 lead at the end of the first quarter. Villisca’s offense had a spark, which led to them whittling away the Red Raiders lead. At one point, Villisca got Corning’s lead down to one point.

“It was close in the first half and they just continued to score in the second half,” Villisca Head Coach Jim Obermeier said.

Villisca was only down 33-29 at halftime. However, Corning would go on to score 55 points in the second half to pull away for good.

“Sometimes, your opponent just goes through a run where they knock down shots and they knocked down a lot of shots,” Obermeier said. “They shot the ball well.”

Corning finished the game shooting 55 percent from the field and made 10 three-pointers in the contest against Villisca.

Obermeier said they switched up defenses in the second half, playing more man instead of zone to stop shooting.

“Going man-to-man, they still knocked down shots and they went to the basket and got easy lay-ups,” Obermeier said.

Both Damon Sunderman and Travis Herzberg were key for the Blue Jays in keeping them close against Corning.

Sunderman in particular scored a season high of 30 points on 11-for-16 shooting, as well as 8-for-10 at the free throw line.

Sunderman also had 11 rebounds (seven offensive), which gave the junior a double-double.

Herzberg meanwhile scored 23 points and was 8-for-9 at the free throw line, adding five rebounds and four assists to his stat total.

“Travis does a nice job when he’s going to the basket aggressively,” Obermeier said about Herzberg.

Obermeier added that both Herzberg and Sunderman had spent additional time in the weight room.

Joe McKinley and Max Mauderly each scored four points.