By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
The Southeast of Saline girl’s basketball team locked up their second-straight outright league title tonight with a 52-22 beating of the Ellsworth Bearcats.
This win moves the Lady Trojans record to 16-3, advances their win streak to 8, and extends a ridiculous 25 game win streak against the NCAA dating back to 2019-20.
This win was made all the more impressive by the fact that Southeast was challenged by Ellinwood just one day prior, and had to prepare physically and mentally on short rest.
“I thought from the very beginning that we came out and looked good,” SES head coach Shauna Smith said. “We’re very good at scouting a team the day before and I thought we did a good job of making adjustments and doing what we needed to do tonight.”
Unlike last year, the Trojans had seniors to honor on senior night, and Karsyn Schlesener, Mallorie Pearson, and Alaina Yianakopulos all chipped in in a big way, combining for 23 points.
It was a special night for Schlesener, whose 8 points were enough to move past Stephanie Frost and into fourth all-time in SES girl’s basketball history.
“I thought Karsyn was very unselfish tonight and I thought she did a really good job of distributing as well as scoring,” Smith said. “She does so many different things for us.”
Southeast dominated this game from start to finish, taking a 24-9 lead into the second quarter and never looking back.
Nine different Lady Trojans found the scoring column and while none were in double-figures, five contributed six or more in a true team effort.
“Our emphasis tonight was on passing the ball more to get a great shot and to make them play defense for a longer period of time,” she said. “I’ll bet we had 12-15 assists tonight and we saw the players that were wide open.”
Looking at the sub-state bracket, it is entirely possible that SES and Ellsworth could meet again in the sub-state bracket, which favors a Southeast team that has now won the last six meetings.
The Lady Trojans will play their final game of the regular season next Tuesday at Republic County before sub-state play kicks off on March first.