A pair of Cass County high school rivals met up on the basketball court in Belton this past Friday night and neither walked away with an overall advantage as Belton and Raymore-Peculiar shared victories in the boys and girls varsity basketball games.

The Ray-Pec Lady Panthers landed the first shot in an attempted basketball doubleheader sweep when they scored a 54-24 victory over the home-standing Lady Pirates of Belton.

But the Belton boys answered the Lady Panthers blow, as they came back and landed a blow of their own against the Panther boys by forcing a split on the night with a
The win for the Ray-Pec Lady Panthers improved their overall record on the season to 3-6 and snapped a 6-game losing streak as it was Ray-Pec’s first victory after opening up the season with back-to-back wins over Lee’s Summitt and St. Joseph Lafayette.

The loss by the Lady Pirates drops their season record to 0-5 on the year and the Belton girls closed out 2021 with the loss as the Lady Pirates will not return to the court until after the new year on January 3 when they are scheduled to play host to Raytownin Belton.

The Lady Panthers, meanwhile, were scheduled to have one more contest before the new year, which was against Oak Park this Monday night, but results from that contest were not available by press time.

The Panther boys were looking to follow up the Lady Panther lead on the night as they came out and landed some early blows against Belton, building a 10-8 lead after the first quarter and pushing that lead to 23-20 by intermission.

But the Pirates were set on regrouping in the second half to prevent a sweep by their Cass County rivals and outscored Ray-Pec 19-9 in the third quarter to take a 39-32 lead into the fourth and final quarter.

Belton sealed up the split in that final period where the Pirates outscored Ray-Pec 11-8 to secure the 50-40 victory.

The win propels Belton to a 4-4 record in what has been a roller coaster ride for the Pirates in the first part of the 2021-22 season as they opened with back-to-back losses before earning 3 straight victories, before two more losses and now the win over Ray-Pec for an even .500 record going into the break.

Belton is scheduled to make its return after the Christmas break at Grain Valley on January 4.

Ray-Pec, meanwhile, saw its season record drop to 3-3 on the year. The Panthers opened the 2021-22 season with a loss against Battle before scoring back-to-back victories over Nevada and Carthage in the Carthage Invitational before falling to Joplin in the Carthage finals, topping Lee’s Summit North before falling to Belton.

Ray-Pec is scheduled to play William Jewell on December 27.