By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
After falling to Hugoton in the Sterling Tournament semifinals on Thursday, the Southeast of Saline girl’s basketball team will be in search of a bounce back on Friday as they square off with Lyons in the third-place game.
The Lady Trojans come into the final contest of their midseason tournament at 8-2, while Lyons enters at 5-6 after being bounced by Scott City on Thursday.
Despite taking just their second loss of the season, the Lady Trojans remain in high spirits after a game that was more about Hugoton winning it than it was about SES losing it.
“If we play again to me it’s a 50/50 game,” SES head coach Shauna Smith said. “We didn’t shoot the ball well from start to finish and we knew we were going to have to do that to match their scoring because we weren’t going to be able to shut their big three down.”
Now, Southeast has an opportunity to finish out their time in Sterling strong, and build some positive momentum to take with them into the home stretch of their season.
“We like that we can come back and end this tournament on a high note,” Smith said. We really want to make sure we don’t lose two in a row. This will be a good game and hopefully, we can get a win and shoot the ball a little better.”
This year’s Lyons Lions are much improved from teams in years past, and with a roster that looks a lot like Southeast’s, the Lady Trojans could have their hands full on Friday afternoon.
“Lyons is going to be aggressive and they really mimic us in a lot of ways playing mostly guards,” she said. “We have to come out and make some shots and I think that will carry us to a win. The focus and energy are good and I think we’ll be okay, these girls don’t want to lose two in a row.”
A big key to this game will lie in finding their feet after an exhausting fourth-quarter push less than 24 hours before the tip-off of this game, and in settling back into a rhythm offensively.
“Their point guard is going to take any look that she has but this whole team plays hard, plays physical, and can shoot the ball 1-8,” Smith said. “We have to be willing to create offense by taking the ball to the bucket. In the fourth quarter we created some offense with our full-court press but we can’t play fatigued.”
Tip-off between the Lady Trojans and Lions is scheduled for 3:00 at Sterling College and as always, the game can be heard on KINA (910 AM or 107.5 FM) or streamed live with audio and video on the Salina Post.