By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
One of the most unthinkable streaks in the state of Kansas came to an end on Friday night as the Southeast of Saline girl’s basketball team fell to Minneapolis, dropping their first league game since January 2020.
The streak, which stood at 28 straight league wins, will go down as one of, if not the most dominant stretch in NCAA history, but will do little to ease the sting of a 47-41 loss on the Lady Trojans’ home floor.
“Rebounding played a role but they outplayed us in every aspect of the game for about 32 minutes,” SES head coach Shauna Smith said. “They outhustled us, they won loose balls and they won rebounds where we didn’t.”
While the rebounding margin as a whole was big for the Lady Lions, it was on the offensive glass where Southeast got outworked the hardest, with a margin of 17-3 by the final whistle.
The teams traded two-point leads at the end of the first two quarters, but early foul trouble left the Lady Trojans a bit hesitant out of the break, and with fewer transition buckets, SES was outscored 10-4 in the third.
“In the first half, we had to play a little differently defensively and we had a lot of miscommunication which led them to some easy buckets. At the end of the day we just didn’t go rebound.”
A pair of small runs allowed the Trojans to get back into the game in the fourth, cutting the lead down to as little as a point, but Minneapolis put the game away at the free throw line, where they outscored the SES by ten, and took 25 attempts to Southeast’s six.
“Offensively we made some cuts early on but we didn’t really get into a flow on that end. When you take it to the basket you’re going to get bumped and we didn’t convert on those.”
Maci McClure was the only player on either side in double figures, tallying 14 for the Lady Lions, while SES was led in scoring by Brielle Ptacek who converted three triples for nine points.
Next up for Southeast of Saline will be a Tuesday trip to Clay Center before the Sterling Tournament gets underway on January 16th.