By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
The Solomon and Ell-Saline boy’s basketball teams will meet in Brookville on Friday night, with the Cardinals looking to equal their win total from a season ago in as many games, while the Gorillas look to get back on track, after hitting a speed bump on Tuesday.
For Solomon, that speed bump came in the form of a 71-41 blowout at the hands of 8th-ranked Bennington, who gave the Gorillas a lot to think about in this week’s practices.
“We expected to play a much closer game than what the score was but hats off to Bennington,” Gorillas head coach Kyler Stein said. “It’s good to play these kinds of games early and we believe that prepares us for that playoff push. Now we know that our practices have to be more intense because we’ve seen what the standard is.”
Meanwhile, Ell-Saline has looked resurgent to start the year, building on the groundwork that was laid last season after toiling without a win for several before.
“We finally have confidence and believe we are a good team and that’s been the best thing I’ve seen from these guys,” Cardinals head coach Marty Wendel said. “We gained a ton of confidence from playing unselfishly and understand that when we finally mature and compete for an entire 32 minutes on both ends of the floor, we go from good to great in a hurry.”
As these two teams collide, each will look to tighten things up to take the next step from their first two games, to their next three to four before the break.
“We still haven't been as good as I would like us to be on the defensive end,” Wendel said. “It all stems from our communication and poor on-ball defense. Luckily for us, it is still very early and I assure you we will get better throughout the year on that end.”
The Gorillas have also gone back to work this week and will look to improve their effort on the glass after conceding second-chance points in bunches to Bennington.
“We’ve got to get better at rebounding,” Stein said. “We thought we had that cleaned up against Burrton but we faced a much bigger, more athletic team in Bennington and we got exposed in that area. Offensive turnovers have been a big issue as well, we can’t give up 13-14 possessions against these better teams.”
To get back in the win column, Solomon will have to control a tempo that Ell-Saline will look to push even faster than an aggressive, press-heavy Gorillas team.
“They’re going to be tough, they’re a very athletic team and they gave us a battle last year,” Stein said. “It’s tough when two teams want to go fast with the tempo because it’s hard to play at that speed without turning the ball over. When it’s time we have to get to our half-court offense and run our stuff when we have an advantage.”
On the other side of this matchup, the Cardinals will have to handle the physical nature of the Gorillas to continue their early undefeated run.
“Solomon definitely has a different look to them this season but those guys play hard every night,” Wendel said. They are physical and attack the offensive glass hard so we are going to have to handle that physicality well so we can get out in transition. We need to execute our game plan defensively and play unselfish on the offensive end for 32 minutes.
Tip-off between the Cardinals and Gorillas is set for 7:30 pm following the girl's game at 6 in Brookville.
For continuing coverage of both teams all season long stay tuned to the Salina Post.