By TYLER HENRY
Lead Sportswriter - Salina Post
On Friday night, the Southeast of Saline basketball teams welcomed in a pair of state-ranked Hesston teams to open their 2024-25 seasons.
SES battled, but the Swathers walked away with a pair of wins by final scores of 67-39 on the girl’s side, and 54-38 on the boy’s side.
Both Hesston teams move to 1-0, while both Southeast squads fall to 0-1.
Girls: #1 Hesston 67, SE of Saline 39
Led by the high-octane duo of Kendal Brueggen and Abby Proctor the No. 1-ranked Lady Swathers made a statement out of the gate, scoring 25 first-quarter points before pulling away in the second.
Southeast matched that pace for a quarter, trailing by just 8 points at the end of the first, but a five-point second and third quarter would ultimately doom the Lady Trojans.
Brueggen and Proctor each scored 25 points in this contest, combining for 50 of the Lady Swather’s 67 on the night.
“Hesston looked the part of a #1 team and their kids did a good job of moving the ball, getting it to those two, and scoring well in the first half,” SES head coach Shauna Smith said.
It’s important to put this result in the context of a Lady Trojan team that graduated a good chunk of its scoring from last year, and which has just two seniors and two returning starters back from that team.
“I wasn’t disappointed in us at all,” Smith said. “I could only think of a few times where we didn’t box out and try to rebound well. I knew we were going to have to get into the 60s to compete with them and I knew that would be hard for us. We had two freshmen play a lot of minutes for us and they’re only going to get better. We want to be playing our best basketball in February not in December.”
Southeast was led in scoring by Aba Pearson with 11 points on a night where seven Lady Trojans scored at least one bucket.
Boys: #5 Hesston 54, #7 SE of Saline 38
Likely still nursing the scrapes and bruises from a state football championship game the week before, the Southeast boy’s team started well, but struggled in a second quarter that saw them score just five points, allowing Hesston to pull away.
The Swathers found strength in numbers, with just one player scoring in double digits (Ty Unruh with 13) but nine different players adding at least one bucket.
Owen Bailey led all scorers with 18 points, and was joined in double figures by Gannon Jacobson, but beyond an eight-point performance from Sam Knopf the rest of the team chipped in just two points the entire night.
Hesston also outpaced Southeast at the free throw line, taking 11 shots from the charity stripe to the Trojan’s 4.
Both SES teams will be back in action on Tuesday when they travel to Abilene to tangle with the Cowboys and Cowgirls.