North Forsyth Raiders Boys Varsity lost against Lambert Longhorns on Tuesday, January 28 at Raider Arena with a score of 59-73. The Longhorns improved to 16-8 on their record, which places them second in the region and the Raiders’ record declined to 6-18, placing them last in the region. The Raiders will look to improve their record on their final regular season game against Milton on the 31 of January.

As the first quarter started, the Raiders were moving very quickly, with senior guard Justin Costello leading the team with eight points in the first six minutes of the game. Costello was able to drive down the lane fast with tremendous defense from sophomore Aidan Kudlas. The Longhorns answered back with senior Braxton Beaty coming strong from the paint as well. Cory Seitz was using his towering height to grab rebounds for the Raiders, giving them the lead with four minutes left in the first. Lambert had to regroup with a timeout, but North had all the answers figured out, and they went into the first quarter up by eight.

As soon as the second quarter started, Justin Costello could not be stopped as he ran back to back points again with help on the defensive side from Kudlas. North had everything right, except for the many fouls they were causing. Lambert was slowly catching up as Will Baker was trying to pull his Longhorns back. However, with Seitz and Costello being the big men of the court, Aidan Kudlas had no trouble finding his backcourt players to the rim. Senior Bennett Helms was very aggressive on the defensive side, putting his body on the line to dive for the ball which led to a three point shot from Kudlas. The Raiders were looking good heading into halftime with a score of 40-32.

The third quarter showed Lambert’s pace and momentum start to pick up, as the Longhorns were shooting threes back to back. Longhorns Forward Jackson Greene was able to get to the rim easy with help from his guard Will Baker. The Raiders were struggling on defense, as the fouls were not going their way. With a timeout from Raiders head coach David Sokol, the Raiders seemed to have slowly fixed their problems on defense. With major plays from Justin Costello and Cory Seitz, the Raiders were still in the lead. Bennett Helms took a very hard shot to the head, but was still able to put up points from the free throw line, and still giving his team the lead at the end of the third.

The fourth quarter belonged to the Longhorns as Will Baker and Braxton Beaty were draining threes from any range. The Raiders were able to stop the Longhorns in the paint, but they could not find an answer from three point range. Cory Seitz was giving his all along with Kudlas, but it was just not enough as Lambert’s defense showed to play in the end. As the game was winding down with six minutes left, the Longhorns went on a scoring spree. Lambert scored 12 points in two minutes and the Raiders could not find an answer. With Lambert starting to go 10 points ahead, the Raiders were starting to slow down and struggled on the scoring side. With the game right about to end, freshman Will Sokol was ejected for ramming a player into the ground, and the game ended with a score of 73-59 and a win for the Longhorns.

At the end of the game, senior Braden Randolph commented on his team saying “It was not our night. We were not putting up the shots we wanted and most importantly, we learned that this game is a team game, and we will bounce back but only if we work hard.” The Raiders will look to improve their mistakes as they take on Milton on the 31 of January.