By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
The Salina South girls basketball team will tip-off their sub-state run looking to upset the 4-seed as the Lady Cougars travel to Topeka-Seaman.
South enters this contest as the 13-seed at 7-13 while the Vikings come in at 15-5.
While South are certainly the underdogs in this matchup, the Lady Cougars have been playing their best basketball recently, winning three in a row before falling to Goddard in the regular-season finale.
“We have grown tremendously as a team since November,” South head coach Justin Ebert said. “It took a while for us to find our identity, but we feel we are heading in the right direction and are ready to play our best basketball in March.”
One of the toughest tasks for the Cougars on Wednesday will be finding ways to limit the Viking's much larger bigs in the paint.
“Right away you notice their size in the post and playmaking ability from the guards,” Ebert said. “We will have to defend and rebound well in the paint, but also find ways to limit their scoring guards. It will take all five girls playing good defense on each possession.”
While South has played good defense throughout the home stretch of the season, the offense has struggled at times, exemplified in a 42-9 loss to Goddard to end their regular season.
“We have struggled offensively to score the basketball and we need to be able to find success early in the game,” he said. “We will be very intentional about providing ourselves early high percentage scoring opportunities.”
Topeka-Seaman has also been playing their best basketball of late, winning 11 of their last 13 in the new year.
Despite the odds being stacked against them, the Cougars are up to the challenge of a game like this and know that one win could put them in the sub-state championship game on Saturday.
“It’s win or go home,” Ebert said. “Our girls have battled a lot of adversity this season and are primed to head to Topeka as the underdog to see if we can come away with a win.”
Tip-off between the Cougars and Vikings is set for 6 pm in Topeka with the winner advancing to the final to take on either 15-5 Andover Central or 7-13 Goddard Eisenhower.
For continuing coverage of Salina South at the sub-state tournament stay tuned to the Salina Post.