Unalaska, AK – The Unalaska Raiders basketball teams faced the toughest teams in their league this weekend at the Barrow Invitational.

The girls had a rough go of it. Their first game showed some of their strengths in their second match-up this season again the Nome Lady Nanooks. They lost 52 to 26, but coach Alan Haskins said they played with confidence.

Their second game, against the Barrow Lady Whalers, proved even more of a challenge. "They came out, pressed us full court all over the floor, and we had way too many turnovers," he said.

They lost 65 to 11. Their last game was against Skyview, a 4A school with about 500 students.

"With Skyview, we didn't match up very well. They had a lot of tall girls - 5'7", 5'8", 5'10". And we couldn't do a whole lot against them, it seemed like. I don't know if the girls were just tired by that point we had a hard time scoring."

They lost to the Skyview Lady Panthers 51 to 8, but "the good thing is they never quit in any of the games. They kept going up to the buzzer, which was good to see. It was a rough tournament for the girls," Haskins said.

The boys also had tough matches. Their first game, on Thursday, was against the number one 3A school in the state, the Nome Nanooks. Coach Jim Wilson said the boys played inconsistently against the tough team and lost by 42 points - 80 to 38.

Their second match up was against Barrow, the number two team in the state. The Raiders were ahead for most of the first quarter and Cameron Lynch scored 27 points during the game.

"As a team we ended up playing much more consistently against Barrow," Wilson said. "We feel like we can play with them, we just have to become more consistent with our offense possession and defend better with every single possession."

The Raiders lost to the Whalers by 20 points, 67 to 47.

From then on, their game kept improving. On Saturday they faced the Skyview Panthers. They won 47 to 37. Additionally, Cameron Lynch was selected by all of the coaches to be part of the eight player all-tournament team. He received a medal and a t-shirt.

Wilson said the team is improving as they go. "I think we're getting much better as the weeks go on, as far as our offensive consistency. Our shot selection is getting better, and we're executing our offenses better. We're starting to limit our turnovers. We're doing much better in that aspect of the game. We just need to become much more consistent defensively. Right now our biggest problem is we're giving up too many points and not guarding consistently enough."

Wilson said that the Unalaska team has only played six official games this year whereas most teams have played 16.

The next games for both the boys and the girls are this weekend here in Unalaska against Wainwright.