By TYLER HENRY
Lead Sportswriter - Salina Post
On the heels of their sixth-straight winning season (15-6), the Southeast of Saline girl’s basketball team will look to reload and run things back when their season gets underway on Friday.
Shauna Smith returns for her ninth season in Gypsum leading the Lady Trojans.
SES will have to overcome the loss of their big senior trio from a year ago, but should have more than enough talent to get the job done this season.
The starting lineup will be anchored by a long senior in Adyson Rohr, a pair of juniors in Abigail Pearson and Suttyn Douglas, and a sophomore in Regan Duran.
The Lady Trojans will also look to the bench for big minutes out of senior Sarah Feldman, juniors Charlotte Knopf and Elliana Smith, sophomore Annabelle Villalaz, and a pair of impact freshmen in Reese Heinrich and Kyiah Samuelson.
We had a chance to catch up with Coach Smith before the start of the new season on Friday.
Q: What excites you most about the state of your program right now at SES?
A: I’m excited by our consistency. We know that every year we’re going to be competitive, we’re going to reload and that’s what we’re doing here again. We lost some people, but we know we’ve got more kids ready to come in. We always seem to get good kids out who are dependable, hard workers.
Q: What are some things you feel you can rely on as your younger players settle in?
A: We have some veterans that we can lean on, and Sarah Feldman and Adyson Rohr are great leaders. This is also Abigail Pearson's third year, and she has a lot of varsity minutes. Our veterans know where to be defensively and how to help and get back.
Q: What are the biggest question marks that you still have before the first game?
A: We have a lot of kids that will get playing time early but I don’t know who will get that time as the season goes on. I’m also wondering where our scoring is going to come from. We got a lot of that from our three seniors last year and we’re going to have to rely on other players to score.
Q: What are the biggest goals or expectations that this team has set out to achieve this year?
A: We’re super young, so our priority is getting to where we need to be by February. We’re going to have some tough nights with our youth but our goal is to be the best team we can be by February.
The Lady Trojans open their season at home, hosting the Hesston Swathers in Gypsum on Friday night.