By TYLER HENRY
Lead Sportswriter - Salina Post
The Southeast of Saline basketball teams split their two-game set with Ellsworth on Tuesday night, setting up one final game to close out their regular seasons.
Girls Game: SE of Saline 49, Ellsworth 36
The Lady Trojan defense came to play from the jump, holding Ellsworth to just four first-quarter points and using that early lead to pull away in a comfortable double-digit win.
This is the fourth-straight victory for Southeast, who moves to 14-5 overall and 7-2 in league play while Ellsworth falls to 8-10 and 2-7 respectively.
“We wanted to get the pedal to the metal early and I thought we did a good job of that,” SES head coach Shauna Smith said. “We came out like we needed to and we survived some early lapses.”
Three different Lady Trojans would finish the night in double digits led by Lexi Jacobson (13) Maddie Harris (12) and Aba Pearson (10).
On the other side of things, Southeast held Ellsworth without a single double-digit scorer. The Lady Bearcats were led by Paityn Tenbrink who finished her night with nine points.
Boys Game: Ellsworth 44, SE of Saline 33
On the boy’s side, Southeast again held Ellsworth to under 50 points but couldn’t get the offensive output to match, sputtering until the fourth and final quarter.
It was another big night for Will Cravens, who scored 24 of the Bearcats 44 points, including 14 of their 21 first-half total.
With this result, Ellsworth moves to 16-2 overall and 7-2 in league play while the Trojans fall to 10-9 and 3-6.
“We were good enough again defensively that this should have been a one-possession game against a team like this. Will is a darn good basketball player but I thought we would be a little better offensively and we just weren’t.”
The Trojans had just four players score, led once again by Connor Caselman (11) and Gannon Jacobson (10), with just 12 points from the rest of the team.
Both Southeast squads will close out their regular seasons next Thursday when they travel to Republic County.