By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
The Southeast of Saline boy’s basketball team wrapped up the Sterling Invitational on a high note, defeating the Kingman Eagles 76-54 to claim a third-place finish.
SES will leave Sterling two wins richer than it arrived heading into the home stretch of the season at 8-3 while Kingman falls to 4-9.
“I thought we did a much better job with energy tonight,” Trojan head coach Bryson Flax said. “We really challenged them to be better in that area after the last two nights. I thought we defended hard and our last three quarters were really good once we settled in.”
Kingman led going into the second quarter but Southeast ripped off a 24-6 run to take a sizable lead into the half and never looked back.
Much of that success was found in limiting the Eagles’ overall shots and turning up the tempo off the glass.
“They’re a good offensive rebounding team but I thought we did a good job of forcing them one shot and out,” Flax said. “We were really special in transition tonight.”
The Trojans were led in scoring by Nakari Morrical-Palmer, who etched a new career-high with 21, even calling his own number late in the game.
“Nakari was special again tonight,” Flas said. “He had 19 points and he asked for the ball and I told him ‘we’re going to give it to you but you’ve got to score’ and that’s exactly what he did.”
Morrical-Palmer was aided by nine other scorers, including three more in double-digits as the Trojans cruised to a win and a third-place bracket finish.
For their efforts this week, Luke Gebhardt and Eli Sawyers were named to the all-tournament team.
SES will be back in action to take on Republic County as league play resumes on Tuesday.
To see a full replay of both games from tonight as seen on the Salina Post click HERE.