By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
The Southeast of Saline girls basketball team will wrap up their regular season on Tuesday with one final league trip to Republic County.
The Lady Trojans, ranked #7 in Class 3A last week, will have an opportunity to cap off a few impressive feats in this final game.
With a win, Southeast can secure back-to-back undefeated seasons against the NCAA, and extend their league winning streak to an unheard of 24 games.
“Winning every league game again was a goal of ours and we wanted to win our league again which we have,” SES head coach Shauna Smith said. “We do have bigger goals but that’s been good for us.”
Despite posting impressive wins from start to finish, this Lady Trojan team has come a long way since their season opener with Hesston, most notably in finding a ten-player rotation to provide consistent scoring each and every night.
“I think we’ve come really far in our depth,” Smith said. “Everyone is contributing and we’re no longer just relying on one or two people. We haven’t had anyone score 20 points all year and in the past, we’ve had to rely on that.”
Republic County has struggled mightily this year and will come into this game still in search of their first win at 0-19.
Despite those struggles and a 63-12 win over the Buffs earlier this season, Southeast refuses to let anyone off the hook and won’t expect anything less than a good fight on Tuesday.
“We’re not going to take this game lightly,” she said. “Republic County is a hard place to play and we want to be scoring at the top of our ability this time of year so we can’t come out thinking this is just going to be an easy win.”
This game will also provide the perfect opportunity for SES to build some momentum and work on their sets ahead of the sub-state tournament next week which will see the Lady Trojans enter as the one-seed.
“We want to work on some more half-court offense before sub-state,” Smith said. “Sometimes we get stale on that and we have to be able to run it better if we’re not working in transition.”
Tip-off between the Trojans and Buffaloes is scheduled for 6 pm at Republic County High School with the boy’s game to follow at 7.
As always, both games can be heard on KINA (910 AM or 107.5 FM) or streamed on the Salina Post.