By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
The Southeast of Saline Lady Trojans wrap up their regular season with a 54-22 victory over the Republic County Lady Buffs.
With this win, SES finishes their season 14-6, and a perfect 8-0 in NCAA play with an outright claim to the league title.
Republic County kept things close early on, holding a 10-2 lead early in the first quarter. But from that point on, the Lady Trojans turned up the heat defensively, allowing just four field goals for the remainder of the game and keeping the Buffs off the board entirely in the fourth quarter.
“We didn’t really feel prepared,” SES head coach Shauna Smith said. “We didn’t come out with a lot of energy and early on we felt like our defense was very good but then you look up and you see that we only gave up 22 points tonight.”
Southeast was led by Karsyn Schlesener, who dropped 18 points in the winning effort.
Once again scoring depth was on display for SES, who had eight players in the scoring column tonight, including a double digit performance by Avery Caselman, who buried four triples for the Trojans.
Republic County got 11 points from Emily Jensik, but didn’t get much else, and struggled mightily to control the ball, coughing it up 23 times.
The Lady Trojans will be back in action when the sub-state tournament kicks off next week. As it stands right now, Southeast will host Kingman, Ellsworth or.
“The ability to play that first round game at home is huge, there won’t be any easy games left for us,” Smith said.