(Oakland) The Riverside girls oppose West Harrison in a Class 1A Region 4 first round game Thursday.
The 4-16 Lady Dawgs will be at home against the 1-20 Hawkeyes. Riverside coach Mitch Rice points out Emily McIntosh and Haley Koch are the opposing team’s primary scorers. “They are a pretty feisty team. They don’t have too many girls out, but they do have a couple girls that have put up a combined over 600 points. They can score the basketball. We have to make sure that we take care of those two girls and then as a team collectively close down everybody else.”
Rice admits that’s not anything they haven’t seen before against a quality lineup of competition in the Western Iowa Conference. Riverside has equaled last season’s win total despite graduating some key personnel. Rice likes the way they’ve stuck to it, “The grit, you know we went through the grind after Christmas of a really hard schedule. We came out of it for the most part with some really good attitudes. Some of your young girls have stepped up, some of our upperclassmen are doing good things. Our shooting is coming along and our ball handling is coming along.”
The winner moves on to face either Woodbine or Heartland Christian on Tuesday in Woodbine.
