Saints and Lady Saints Win Pizza Hut Openers

It was a tale of two nights for the Seward County Lady
Saints and Saints basketball teams Friday night in the Greenhouse. The
Lady Saints came out and blew the doors off of a traditionally good
Northeastern team in an 80-41 win while the Saints struggled once again
to open things up against an inferior opponent, scratching out a 63-55
win over a shorthanded Murray State squad.

Once again Seward got off to an unbelievable start at
home, taking a 17-2 and 22-3 lead on Northeastern in the first half
before they knew what hit them. The Lady Saints continued to build on
their lead behind an impressive shooting performance and at the half led
48-15. Seward got 6 first half three pointers from Madison McLain and 5
first half longballs from Kelsey Blair as the two combined for 34 points
to steak the Lady Saints to the big lead. The enslaught continued in
the second half as Seward’s guard made it tough on the offensive end for
the Plainswomen and the Lady Saints had their way on their side of the
floor. The lead ballooned to 40 as McLain came within one three of
tying the school record of 8 in a game, before coasting to a 39 point
win 80-41. McLain finished with 22 and Blair 18 while Fabiana Monte
stepped up after a foul plagued first half to finish with 15 on 7 of 10
shooting. The Lady Saints improve to 9-3 on the year and will take on
Arkansas Baptist Saturday night at 6:00.

The Saints had a much tougher time of things as they
scored the first 4 points of the game before an 8-0 run from Murray
State’s Timothy Smallwood put the Aggies on top 8-4. It was a slow
going, back and forth affair for much of the first half as the teams
took turns sharing the lead before a late three from Jabari Peters put
Seward up 4 and then two more three’s from Kaheem Ransom gave the Saints
a 33-25 lead going into the break. In the second half, points continued
to be tough to come by, but the Saints were able to build their lead to
double digits and kept it right around 10 most of the half. They
stretched it to as many as 14, but the Aggies stuck around, cutting the
Saints lead to just 6 with under a minute to go and just four players on
the floor after two of their six fouled out of the game. The Saints
made enough free throws down the stretch to hang on for the 63-55 win
despite going just 8 for 18 at the line in the second half. Edson Avila
finished with his third double double of the year with 14 points and 11
rebounds while Peters had 14 points, 5 assists, and 5 steals, and Ransom
shrugged off a tough night to finish with 13. The Saints move to 7-4 on
the year and battle Beacon Prep Saturday night at 8:00 in the
Greenhouse.