Mar 02, 2021

Lady Trojans knock off Kingman 55-31 to advance to the sub-state semis

Posted Mar 02, 2021 3:07 AM

By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post Contributor

This SES game recap is brought to you by Salina Ortho: Quality orthopedic care when you need it!
This SES game recap is brought to you by Salina Ortho: Quality orthopedic care when you need it!

The Southeast of Saline Lady Trojans took a round one victory against the Kingman Lady Eagles tonight to advance to the sub-state semi-final on Thursday.

SES defeated Kingman by a final score of 55-31, advancing to 15-6 on the season while the Lady Eagles wrap up their 2020-21 run at 4-15.

Kingman battled hard early in this game, but as SES settled in, the Lady Trojans found a big advantage on the floor.

“We knew they were going to come out and be physical with us, so we knew that we were going to need to spread the floor out to find an advantage,” SES head coach Shauna Smith said. “I thought we did a good job once we got settled in and I think we did a really good job of spreading out the scoring.”

Karsyn Schlesener led the way in scoring for Southeast tonight with 14 points, but got big contributions from the entire cast, with 12 from Alaina Yianakopulos, 7 from Maddie Harris and Avery Caselman, 6 from Lexi Jacobson and 9 more from Brielle Ptacek, Reagan Goetz and Ashlyn Johnson.

This game will be the final home game for SES this season, as the tournament moves to a “neutral site” for the final two games. 

Unfortunately for the Lady Trojans that neutral site is Hesston High School, and their next opponent will be the Hesston Lady Swathers.

“Having home court advantage may have helped tonight,” Smith said. “I’m sure Hesston will have a big crowd on Thursday night but I think our young players will be fine, they’ve played in some big games already.”

In addition to being in big games this season, the young core of SES has also developed a ton since their season opener against Hesston, where they fell to the Lady Swathers 63-41.

“I watched our film from that game and I don’t think we realized how fast that game was going to go,” she said. “I think we were a little bit soft then but we’re a lot more physical now and a lot of our freshmen have found their identities since then.”

Tip off for the semi-final on Thursday is still TBD but stay tuned to the Salina Post for more updates on the Lady Trojan basketball team throughout the sub-state tournament.