It wasn’t for lack of effort that the Red Hook Lady Raiders lost to Wallkill on Feb. 1. Seven out of 13 Raiders managed to score against Wallkill who entered the game with a record of 11-1, but that wasn’t enough to stop the Lady Panthers, who left Red Hook’s gym with a 67-54 win.
The Lady Raiders were having trouble early on, with Wallkill’s size – their starting line-up featured 6’1” sophomore forward Heather Kiczek and 5’11” junior forward Kelly Markisello, compared to Red Hook’s tallest starter, Marist Parr, at 5’9” – and quick ball movement, headed by sophomore guard Chelsea Murphy.
Wallkill led by 16-3 at 2:40, but Red managed to escape the quarter trailing 16-8, courtesy of baskets from both Ciara Burud and Kyla Gabriel. Then they caught a break when they entered the bonus early in the second quarter, scoring four of the period’s 12 points on foul shots. The Lady Panthers were slap-happy through the first half, tallying nine fouls to Red Hook’s four.
Red’s junior guard Julianne Wilkinson’s play gave the team some momentum, showing tough defense and managing six points on the quarter, including two baskets on cutting drives to the hoop. The Lady Raiders went into the locker room trailing 29-20.
Wallkill went on a 9-1 scoring run to open the next quarter, which lasted until Wilkinson stopped the bleeding at 5:16 by scoring on an inbound pass. The Lady Panthers immediately went on another run of six points, which was stopped after a Burud field goal at 3:16. Red could not find an answer for Wallkill’s rebounding or breakaway offense, and left the quarter trailing 54-33. Wilkinson scored 11 points on the quarter; the only other Raider to score in the period was Burud.
The fourth quarter was the only period in which the Lady Raiders led the Lady Panthers in scoring, posting 21 points to Wallkill’s 13. Red still had trouble containing Wallkill, losing eight points in the quarter as a result of a full court press.
Wilkinson led all scorers in the game, and scored half of Red Hook’s total, with 27 points.
“Well, hopefully we’re going to get better from this loss,” Red Hook head coach Pam White told The Observer after the game. “They’ve got a lot of size, they’ve got a lot of weapons. Honestly, I don’t know what positives we can take from this game. I’ll have to take a look at the film – at least we played hard.”
