By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
After decimating Republic County 75-23 on Tuesday, the Southeast of Saline boys basketball team will set their sights on another league opponent on Friday as the Trojans return home to battle the Bearcats.
2nd-ranked Southeast will enter this contest at 11-1 while Ellsworth comes in at 9-4, having won four of their five league matchups so far.
In need of a bounce back after falling in their first and only loss of the season, the Trojans roared out of the gates earlier this week, and their game with the Buffaloes was over shortly after it began.
“Our defensive principles held true and our guys were consistently in the right spots and taking the right angles on closeouts in that game,” SES head coach Bryson Flax said. “On the offensive end, we ran more sets than we have to this point and I thought no matter who was on the floor we did a great job of executing.”
In an effort to tighten their stranglehold on the rest of the NCAA, the Trojans will turn their attention to one of its best this year in a Bearcat team that looks much better than previous renditions.
Once again the focal point will be Will Cravens, who continues to lead the Bearcat offense, but who has gotten more help from his supporting cast this season.
“Will continues to be a standout there offensively creating for himself and getting others involved,” Flax said. “If you put too much emphasis on him they have other guys that can hurt you and if you don’t put enough on him he’ll get you himself.”
On the other side of the matchup, Southeast will look to push the pace beyond what a traditionally slower Ellsworth offense is comfortable with, and attempt to keep them off balance for the better part of 32 minutes.
“It all starts defensively,” he said. “We want to make them work to get the ball up the floor, and then on the offensive end we have to hit shots, getting ahead of a team like this is a great way to speed them up and make them feel like they have to play catch up. Our goal is to start fast and stay true to ourselves with our defensive pressure.”
While SES spread the scoring out with twelve different Trojans tacking on a point against Republic County, the team will need to keep that offensive intensity tonight against a much better Bearcat defense.
“I think the scoring spread in that game was a positive but in a lot of cases, there wasn’t a lot of resistance,” Flax said. “We need to continue to build off of that and we can’t be content, we have buckets that we can get any time we want we just have to be willing to make the extra pass.”
Tip-off between the Trojans and Bearcats is set for 7:00 at Southeast of Saline High School following the girl’s game at 6:30.
As always, both games can be heard on KINA (910 AM or 107.5 FM) and streamed live with audio and video on the Salina Post.