By TYLER HENRY
Lead Sportswriter - Salina Post
The Southeast of Saline basketball teams played to a split with Republic County on Friday night, with the 9th-ranked Lady Trojans dominating in a blowout win.
Girls: SE of Saline 60, Republic County 24
At the top of this game, the two teams traded buckets to the tune of a 4-4 score, but Southeast quickly took control, dominating the remainder of the first quarter and using an 18-0 run to pull away.
The Lady Trojans would extend their 22-7 lead to 41-13 at the halftime intermission thanks in large part to 19 first-half points from Reese Heinrich.
In the second half, SES did more of the same, putting the car in cruise control through a fourth quarter with a running clock on their way to a 60-24 victory.
Heinrich didn’t score in the second half but didn’t really need to, still leading all scorers on the night with 19 points.
Six different Lady Trojans chipped in seven or more points with Suttyn Douglas (11) joining Heinrich in double digits.
Kylie Stone led Republic County with ten points in the loss.
With this result the 9th-ranked Lady Trojans improve to 5-2 overall and 1-1 in league play while the Lady Buffs fall to 2-6 and 0-4 respectively.
Boys: Republic County 38, SE of Saline 34
The boys game got off to a slow start offensively and remained at a slow pace throughout the game, with a score of 3-0 persisting until the final three minutes of the opening quarter.
Southeast would go on a 7-0 run to take a 10-5 lead at the end of the first, but Republic County found its way back into the game, hitting an alley-oop off a missed three to take a 17-16 lead at halftime.
In the third quarter, the Buffaloes got back to playing their game, getting to the free-throw line ten times and capitalizing on eight of those chances to keep the game close.
Southeast scored a crucial and one bucket to tie the game at 34 with three minutes to play in the fourth quarter, but went 0-7 from the floor down the stretch as Republic County held on for their first win over SES since 2013.
Aden Morris (12) and Connor Martin (11) led the Buffaloes as the only players on the night in double figures.
SES was led in scoring by Tiernan Ptacek (8) and Adam Thiel (8)
With this result, Republic County improves to 6-2 overall and 3-1 in league play, while Southeast falls to 1-6 and 0-2 respectively.
You can watch both games on demand below.