By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
The Southeast of Saline Lady Trojans battled hard but came up just short falling to the Smoky Valley Vikings 53-47.
While SES does fall to 1-1 on the year, senior Karsyn Schlesener joins exclusive company, becoming just the ninth player in program history with 1,000 career points.
“Even though tonight was a loss I didn’t want that to be dismissed,” Lady Trojan head coach Shauna Smith said. “There aren’t many players at many schools that can say that they have 1,000 points. Karsyn is a great player and she’s going to score a lot of points this season.”
Schlesener’s 14 points led the team and was good enough to launch her from 10th to 7th on the all-time Southeast of Saline scoring list.
On the other side of things, the Vikings were led by a 2o-point performance by Breanna Priddy who was joined in double figures by Adrian Hazelwood.
Smoky Valley utilized their size to their advantage, getting several second-chance opportunities and shooting 20 more free throws than the Trojans.
“We kept saying it would be nice to have a six-footer,” Smith said. “But we don’t have that and we’re not going to get that so we have to find ways to limit second-chance points and not give up easy buckets.”
SES also struggled to find looks inside tonight and struggled to knock down shots from deep, trailing 25-12 at the half.
“We knew they were going to make us shoot some threes which should be right up our alley but we just couldn’t make a shot,” Smith said. “We got some good looks but we couldn’t put it in the bucket.”
Southeast battled back and cut the lead down considerably but ran out of time as the Vikings advanced to 2-0 on the year.
The Lady Trojans will host Beloit in their home opener on Friday after finishing the 2020-21 season without a single loss in league play.
“We’d love to stay undefeated in our league but Beloit is well-coached and they may have been young last year but they’re going to be really good this year,” Smith said. We’re expecting a dogfight.”