By TYLER HENRY
Lead Sportswriter - Salina Post
After dropping their season opener to Hesston, the Southeast of Saline girl’s basketball team was back with a vengeance on Tuesday in a convincing 46-30 win over Smoky Valley.
With this victory, the Lady Trojans improve to 1-1 on the young season while the Lady Vikings fall to 1-1.
Southeast saw rapid improvement across the board as their new rotation continues to settle in and get comfortable on the varsity floor.
“Ten turnovers in this game was a lot better and I’m sure a lot of those came late,” SES head coach Shauna Smith said. “I thought tonight we were much more patient on offense, we weren’t settling for threes, and we went inside out.”
After an abnormally slow start to the season, Lexi Jacobson exploded on Tuesday, scoring 6 of the Lady Trojan’s 13 first-quarter points, and leading the charge with a 16-point, 14-rebound double-double.
“Lexi wasn’t happy about her performance last week,” Smith said. “Our offense has to run through her and we need her taking more shots, she came out and played really well tonight.”
Jacobson was aided by six other Southeast scorers, led by a pair of eight-point performances from Maddie Harris and Abigail Pearson.
The Lady Trojans also looked much better on the glass, shortening Smoky Valley possessions while earning themselves extra looks as well.
“Our emphasis was on boxing out and getting some second-chance points,” she said. “We also wanted to make them take some off-balance shots and I thought we did a good job of that.”
Adrian Hazelwood led all scorers with 18 points in the losing effort, but it proved to be too little too late in a game Southeast controlled from the jump.
The Lady Trojans will return to Gypsum for their home opener with Beloit this Friday.