By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
After dispatching the hosts 58-21 in the opening round of the Sterling Tournament, the Southeast of Saline girl’s basketball team is moving on to the semifinals, where SES will meet Hugoton for a trip to the championship game.
The Lady Trojans will come into this contest at 8-1, ranked as the #9 team in Class 3A, while the Lady Eagles enter at 5-4 but with a brutal schedule loaded with ranked and larger opponents.
On the other side of the bracket, Lyons and Scott City will also do battle for a trip to the final, with the losers of these two games meeting in the third-place game on Friday.
Southeast has had a day to rest after a decimation of Sterling on Tuesday, in which the Lady Trojans held the Black Bears under five points in three of the four quarters.
“I thought we did a good job of executing our gameplan defensively and offensively we really kept everyone involved,” SES head coach Shauna Smith said. “We didn’t just go down and make one pass and shoot the ball, we moved it around and got some really good looks.”
Now, Southeast turns their attention to one of the most dangerous teams in the tournament in a multi-faceted Hugoton team whose losses have mostly come at the hands of ranked opponents, and who boasts wins over 5 and 6A programs.
“Tournament seedings can be strange and I do feel like these are probably the best two teams here but that’s how these things go,” Smith said. “On the other side, Scott City has a lot of talent though, and people match up with other teams differently.”
To punch their ticket to another Sterling Tournament final, SES will need to eliminate the Eagles for a second consecutive season, after squeaking past Hugoton in overtime last year. To do this, the Lady Trojans know they will have to be on their A-game to avoid playing in the third-place matchup.
“If you have an off night in a tournament like this you’re not going to survive and win,” she said. “Thursday night we’re going to have to play extremely hard and it was good that we had an opportunity to rest our kids in that Sterling game.”
Rest or no rest, the Lady Trojans will need to keep up with a potent Eagles scoring attack led by Gianna Vos, Summaya Adigun, and Mikyn Hamlin, who has been slowly working her way back from an injury.
“We know that we’re probably going to have to score in the 50s to be able to beat them,” Smith said. “They’re a good team and they’re going to make their runs but we have to stay disciplined on defense and we have to score because we’re not going to be able to hold all of their scorers down.”
Tip-off of this semifinal matchup is set for 6 pm at Sterling High School, and can be heard exclusively on KINA courtesy of Eagle Radio.
For continuing coverage of both SES basketball teams through the final two days of the Sterling Tournament, stay tuned to the Salina Post.