By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
Against their biggest rival, on their home floor, with their league destiny still in their control, the Southeast of Saline girl’s basketball team was in big trouble on Tuesday evening, down double digits late to Sacred Heart.
With their backs to the wall, the Lady Trojans put together a furious fourth-quarter comeback to knock off the Knights 48-44, and improve to 12-2 on the season, and 5-1 in league play.
Both teams came to play defensively in a first quarter that saw just nine total points scored, and at the halftime break, SES was in the driver's seat, up 19-14.
Out of the intermission, the Lady Trojans struck first, but Sacred Heart immediately erased all of their progress with an impressive 11-0 run, seizing control of the game with four third-quarter threes to go up 34-28.
Things didn’t get much better for Southeast early in the fourth, where they found themselves down by as many as 11, and down by eight with under 2:30 left to play.
“We really gutted it out and when we were down late,” SES head coach Shauna Smith said. “We knew we had fouls to give and we really got up and got on them. We were able to get some steals and we knew there wasn’t an eight-point play, we were going to have to work our way back in.”
Brielle Ptacek started the Southeast run with a tray, and Maddie Harris immediately matched that with a three of her own off a steal before picking a Lady Knight’s pocket to set up another Trojan bucket inside.
In a flash, SES was right back in the game, and when they needed her most Harris nailed two more triples to help her team secure the tie, and then the lead down the stretch.
“We did a good job of talking to each other and that’s not something we were doing in the third quarter,” Smith said. “The ball was sticking on one side and we looked like five individuals but we were able to open the game up once we fixed that.”
Sacred Heart attempted to rally but the damage was done, and SES put the game away at the free throw line, securing the season sweep and another big league win.
With five made three-pointers, Maddie Harris tied a career-high, leading all scorers with 17 points, her offensive acumen matched only by her lockdown defense on the night.
“Maddie can do this every night when she wants to and she did all of those things late,” she said. “In the third quarter, we needed to make them play more defense and Maddie really ran the team on both ends and set us up to win late.”
Harris wasn’t the only Lady Trojan in double figures as Lexi Jacobson tacked on ten more in a game that saw just five players score for Southeast.
SES will turn its attention to one of just two remaining non-league matchups on Friday where the Lady Trojans will travel to Chapman to battle the Lady Irish.
“Chapman is very athletic,” Smith said. “We’ve seen some film on them and they’re really capable of doing some good things with a second-year head coach.”