By TYLER HENRY
Salina Post contributor
On the heels of their first and only loss of the 2022-23 season, the 5th-ranked Southeast of Saline girl’s basketball team will look to bounce back on Tuesday ahead of their midseason tournament as they travel to Clay Center to take on the Tigers.
The Lady Trojans will come into this contest at 6-1 while Clay Center, one of the only teams to defeat Southeast a season ago, will enter at 4-3.
While Friday’s falter was certainly frustrating, the Lady Trojans have refocused and will be primed to get back to their winning ways on the road tonight.
“Minneapolis outplayed us in every area,” SES head coach Shauna Smith said. “They won loose balls and rebounds where we didn’t and I think we kind of got content. We’ll have to re-evaluate some things but I think we’ll be better for this, and I think getting a wake-up call early in the season is better than at the end.”
While the Lady Tigers have faced their fair share of adversity this season, Clay Center will present many of the same problems that Minneapolis did, and SES will be in for a dogfight this evening.
“Clay Center is a lot like Minneapolis but they have a little more size,” Smith said. “Defensively those two teams are clones of each other. We’re focusing on our defense in practice, which hasn’t been very good in these last two games and we have to communicate better.”
Much like Southeast of Saline, the Lady Tigers also boast an incredibly deep rotation and will be able to keep their legs fresh for all 32 minutes without sacrificing much in the way of talent.
“They’re a really well-rounded team,” she said. “They don’t have one go-to player. They’ll go 8-9 deep and all of them can shoot the ball and do a lot of things well.”
For the Lady Trojans to bounce back and enter midseason tournament week at 7-1, SES will need excellence on the glass and will need to value each and every possession on offense.
“Shots haven’t come easy for us in our last two games but we also haven’t put ourselves in a position to take good shots,” Smith said. “We also got outrebounded 18-42 so that will be a big key for us moving forward.”
Tip-off between the Lady Trojans and Tigers is set for 6:30 pm at Clay Center High School with the boys’ game to follow at 7:00.
For continuing coverage of SES hoops all season long stay tuned to the Salina Post.