Spartans Fall to Raiders in District Opener 80-65

South Warren opened district play against Brandon Combs and the Warren East Raiders on Friday night, as both teams had shown some definitive flashes of solid basketball in the opening two weeks of the season. For Tony Hopper’s club, the question continued to be turnovers, free throw shooting, and consistency outside of the expected offensive threats.

Coach Combs told the Sporting Times he wanted to push the pace, find more scoring in transition and off of takeaways. While those things certainly occurred, Warren East’s three point shot became the biggest story in the first half.

As the teams headed to the locker room at halftime, McKenzie Strange had 14 points, including a pair of three pointers. Khalil Britt had a three, as did Kaleb, but Khalil had 11 points due to some nifty work on the interior and around the rim. Patrick Satterfield also hit two from beyond the arc in the half.

For South Warren, Dayton Gumm led the way with seven, but the SWHS offense had stagnated. Warren East appeared faster, quicker to the ball, and when those observations match with strong perimeter shooting, it was no surprise that the Raiders led the contest 34-26 after two quarters.

In the third, the Raiders put the game away, scoring the first 13 points of the quarter. South Warren trailed it by 21, but would

fight hard, cutting the advantage to seven early in the fourth quarter. Free throws down the stretch would allow the Raiders to pull away, but not before Brandon Stacker scored 13 in the final eight minutes to keep the Spartans within shouting distance.