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Raiders Seeded 3rd In District Event

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By DAREK SHARP, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 26, 2008

PLANT CITY - Looking for their school's first trip to the state girls basketball playoffs since 1986, the Plant City Raiders will take on host Riverview in the first round of next week's District 6A-8 tournament.

The Raiders are the No. 3 seed and will play at 6 p.m. Tuesday. They will need to win two games to make the 6A regional playoffs, but this year's group has a legitimate chance at getting there.

Last week, the Raiders finished their district schedule with three straight wins. Sade Dunkley scored 15 points, and Jade Forte added 14 against Riverview. Plant City ended with a 10-4 district record.

Durant found itself tied with East Bay and Riverview at 2-10 in the district. Since none of the conventional tiebreakers settled matters, both the fifth and sixth seeds were determined by a coin flip. The Cougars lost both flips, making them the bottom seed.

But in reality the team that "won" the flips and got the No. 5 spot, East Bay, probably has the hardest road because top-seeded Sarasota Riverview is in that half of the bracket. Durant will play No. 2 Sarasota on Tuesday at 8 p.m.

Fourth-seeded Lakeland will meet East Bay in the 4 p.m. game Tuesday. The winner gets Sarasota Riverview.

Should Plant City beat Riverview - the Raiders were a 72-61 winner there last week - the Raiders would be one victory away from the state playoffs. They would meet the Sarasota-Durant winner in a semifinal Friday at 6 p.m.

The district finals are at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 2.

Reporter Darek Sharp can be reached at dsharp@tampa trib.com.

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