By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
The annual Sterling Invitational tipped off on Tuesday evening in central Kansas and the Southeast of Saline girl’s basketball team will enter Wednesday's action in a favorable position as the 2-seed in bracket play.
SES comes into the invitational as one of three ranked teams in the state, along with the #1 teams in Classes 2 and 3A in Sterling and Hugoton respectively.
“Every night is going to be a dogfight,” Lady Trojan head coach Shauna Smith said. “We have to get through three games and we know that we’re going to have to play some of our best basketball this week.”
Southeast’s first task lies in defeating the 3-7 Kingman Eagles, a team they knocked off twice last season by final scores of 40-26 at Sterling, and 55-31 at sub-state.
Despite their recent success against the Eagles, the Trojans aren’t taking this opening-round matchup lightly.
“We’re definitely not overlooking this Kingman team,” Smith said. “We watch them on film and there are some things that they do really well.”
Kingman has been led this season by a duo of aggressive guards in Alex Schreiner and Aly Hageman, who pair well with the Eagle's larger frontcourt.
“They have several players on their team who can post up which creates size disadvantages for us,” she said. “They also have guards that like to attack the basket so we have to keep those players in front of us.”
While the SES defense has remained one of the best units in the state this season, the Trojans will need to continue posting good offensive performances in order to stay on the winner's side of the bracket on Thursday.
“I know I say this every week but we have to score,” Smith said. “We know if we can get into the upper 50s we should be right where we need to be and we have to set the tempo of every game we play.”
The winner of this game will advance to the semi-finals on Thursday to play 5-1 Hugoton or 4-1 Lyons at 4:00 while the loser will play the other at 3:00.
Tip-off between the Trojans and Eagles is scheduled for 6 PM with the boy’s game to follow at 7.
Tonight's game can be heard on KINA (910 AM or 107.5 FM) courtesy of Eagle Radio.
For continued coverage of both SES teams throughout the tournament, stay tuned to the Salina Post.