By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
The Southeast of Saline girls basketball team collected a huge win on Friday night, defeating the #6 Hillsboro Trojans of Class 2A 49-36.
With this win, Southeast advances to 4-1 on the young season while Hillsboro falls to 4-2.
SES fell behind 12-6 in a slog of a first quarter but defense won the day for the Trojans who battled back in the second half, taking their first lead midway through the third quarter and never looking back.
“We couldn’t score to save our lives but we were only down by three at halftime,” SES head coach Shauna Smith said. “Our defense is pretty darn good, that’s something we’ve always been good at but we needed to get some buckets.”
Coming out of the break, Southeast began to claw their way back, playing with more movement and confidence against a larger, physical opponent in Hillsboro.
“We had to talk them out of the offensive hesitance at the half and once we got settled in and hit people with some back door cuts that opened some things up for us,” Smith said.
Junior Reagan Goetz led the way for SES with a career-high 14 point performance. Goetz was joined in double digits by a 13-point night from Karsyn Schlesener, who jumped into sixth place on the all-time scoring list at Southeast.
“Reagan stepped up for us on both sides of the ball tonight,” She said. “She guarded their post and offensively she got us rolling and you could really see it clicking with her.”
Hillsboro was led in scoring by Savannah Shahan, who was the only visiting Trojan to score double digits with ten points.
Defensively SES held the sixth-ranked team in Class 2A to just six made field goals in the second half, another stifling performance for one of the best defensive units in Class 3A.
“We want to score but there’s a lot more to the game than that this was a real team win for us,” Smith said. “We really had to buckle down on defense and everybody had to understand their roles which is something our girls do a really good job of.”
The Lady Trojans will be back in action one last time before the holiday break, staying at home to take on the 2-2 Sacred Heart Knights on Monday.