Photo by Brent Baker – The Hornets’ Sierra Speiker cuts past Lake Roosevelt’s Briana Monaghan on the way to the basket during Wednesday’s season-ending loss to the Raiders.

EAST WENATCHEE – The Oroville girls basketball team’s district tournament run came to a swift and decisive halt on Wednesday, Feb. 15, as an angry Lake Roosevelt team dispatched the Hornets 54-15 in a loser-out contest at Eastmont High School.

Lake Roosevelt hadn’t expected to be in this game; the Raiders had been upset on Monday by Mandy Southard’s Entiat team, which Oroville coach Mike Bourn had expected to play.

Instead, the Hornets saw the Raiders, last year’s Cinderella squad that was already facing elimination from its quest to improve on last year’s fourth place state finish.

The Raiders led 32-6 at the half and 47-8 after three quarters before taking the foot off the pedal in the fourth.

The game was out of hand so quickly that Bourn had his JV players in the game in the second quarter to try to find any kind of spark.

“We haven’t been the same since (team captain Kelsey) Hughes got hurt,” he said. “But that’s not an excuse for tonight. We might not be able to beat them without her, but we should be better than what we showed.

“We started off playing OK, but once we started missing shots our heads got down. LR was out to prove a point tonight, and they did. They could have made it worse if they’d wanted to.”

Briana Moralez led the Hornets (11-11) with five points and Katie Tietje had four.

Naomi Peters and Hughes were the Hornets’ only two seniors.

“Other than Naomi, this was next year’s team the past few weeks,” Bourn said. “This week the girls got a taste of what it’s like.”

Lake Roosevelt’s (15-8) reprieve lasted only one game; the Raiders fell 65-58 in overtime on Friday in a loser-out contest to Riverside Christian.