By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
Southeast of Saline battled the Black Bears of Sterling until the bitter end, but came up short against the by a final score of 64-49.
Coming into this game the Lady Trojans knew that they would be tested, but rose to the occasion, trailing the best team in 2A by just one point at the end of the third quarter.
Sterling however, led by a huge fourth quarter performance by Kali Briar, pulled away with a quick start to the quarter to put SES on their heels for the rest of the game.
With this win, Sterling remains a perfect 11-0 on the season and will play in the championship game tomorrow, while Southeast falls to 5-5, and will play in the fifth place game against Kingman tomorrow.
The Lady Trojans were led tonight by Karsyn Schlesener with 12 points, but once again got great minutes from their underclassmen.
I thought our younger girls did a good job playing against high competition,” SES head coach Shauna Smith said. “Now they’ve seen it and we have to play at a high level for 32 minutes.”
While defensive points dropped SES from the third place game to the fifth place game, an opportunity to leave the Sterling Invitational with a win is still a big prospect to the developing team.
“We’re just looking at getting two wins out of this,” Smith said. “We played so hard tonight so we are going to need to play a little deeper tomorrow most likely.”
Tomorrow's game against Kingman will be played at 3pm at Sterling High School. Stay tuned to Salina Post for more information and for previews of both SES matchups to close out the Sterling Invitational.