By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
For the third time this season, the Ell-Saline Cardinals and Bennington Bulldogs will clash on the hardwood looking to build some momentum in the closing weeks of the regular season.
Bennington has gotten the better of their area foe in both matchups so far with wins of 38-26 in December and 68-53 in January.
Much of that success for the Bulldogs can be attributed directly to big-man Eli Lawson, who has averaged 20 points per game and posted a 37-point performance the last time the two met.
“We simply can not stop Eli Lawson,” Cardinals coach Marty Wendel said. “He has career nights against us every time we see them.”
Ell-Saline will enter this game at 2-14, still much improved from a winless 2020-21 campaign while Bennington comes in at 8-8, looking to use their advantage in the paint to get back above .500.
“I think we have used our size well in the first couple of matchups,” Bulldog coach Curtis Pickering said. “We are playing our zone a lot more efficiently than early in the season.”
While Ell-Saline has continued to improve this season, they still have some work to do to close the gap to a team like Bennington.
“They are really well-coached and do a great job of executing their scouting reports,” Wendel said. “It’s hard to score on them because they are ready to defend anything you throw at them. Offensively they just continue to grow as a group and play well together.”
Despite their recent success in the rivalry, Coach Pickering and his squad have a lot of respect for what the Cardinals have been building over the course of the last two years.
“They have some really great guys over there from the staff to the kids,” he said. “They’ve really competed this year and have had plenty of games that could have gone the other way. I’m sure Coach is proud of how hard they have worked to get better as a group. And they have a lot more confidence, especially their younger guys.”
That respect doesn’t mean that the Bulldogs will show any quarter to their area rival, and for the Ell-Saline to pull the upset tonight they will need several breaks to go their way in addition to playing incredible basketball.
“We need a ton of luck on our side,” Wendel said. “Hopefully we are up to the task of slowing down Lawson or he might have a new career-high on Tuesday. Offensively we have to find ways to consistently score points throughout an entire game and not just a couple minutes or quarters.”
Tip-off between the Cardinals and Bulldogs is set for 7 pm at Bennington high school following the girl's game at 6:00.