Lady Saints Hammer Beavers

The #7 Seward County Lady Saints got off to a hot start and never looked back Wednesday night in the Greenhouse on Hispanic Heritage Night. Seward led 29-8 after one and 44-18 at the half in route to a 92-44 thrashing of visiting Pratt to improve to 21-1 on the year.

After getting off to a slow start in their first matchup with the Beavers, Seward made sure that wasn’t going to happen in front of their home crowd on Wednesday night as the Lady Saints raced out to an early 11-0 lead, getting threes from Neidy Ocuane and Erin Richardson and points in the paint by Joanna Grymek and Mollie Mounsey to take control early. The reigning Jayhawk Conference Player of the Week Mounsey dominated the rest of the first quarter for Seward, scoring seven more points in the final 3:00 to finish the quarter with 12 as the Lady Saints led 29-8.

Seward began the second as they did the first, in absolute control of the action, as the Lady Saints put in the first six of the period to blow their lead up to 35-8 with 8:00 to go in the first half. Seward went cold through the middle of the quarter, failing to score for a stretch of 4:30, but their defense held the lead steady and a late three from Richardson sent the Lady Saints to the half in control, leading 44-18.

Seward forced 20 first half Beaver turnovers and got 14 points from Mounsey and 10 from Grymek to lead the way. Seward shot 45% from the field in the half while limiting Pratt to just 32% and 8 first half field goals.

It was the Neidy Ocuane show early in the third quarter as the shifty Seward guard ripped off back to back steals and scored on both to push the Lady Saints towards the 50 point mark early in the period. A three from Mounsey did the trick and later in the quarter a three from Valerie Caro stretched the Lady Saints lead to 58-23. Seward continued to rain in threes against the Beavers defense, getting a pair from Richardson and another from Mounsey to beat the third quarter buzzer to send the Lady Saints to the fourth with a commanding 71-25 lead.

With their starters on the bench for the entirety of the fourth quarter, the Lady Saints bench brought the game home. Diamond Bailey got in the action with a triple and Manuela Fungate owned the paint with four straight to push the Seward lead to 80-36. All 10 Seward players eventually got into the scoring column as the Lady Saints dribbled out a 92-44 victory to improve to 21-1 on the year.

Seward shot 46% on the night and held Pratt to just 31% shooting while forcing 33 Beaver turnovers which they turned into 43 points. Mounsey led Seward with 22 points in 21 minutes of work while Grymek, Ocuane, and Richardson each had 12. Caro had 9 off the Seward bench while Bailey and Alex Tyson each had 8 in a reserve role and Fungate ripped down a team best 12 rebounds in the win.

The Lady Saints improve to 21-1 on the year with their fourth straight victory while pushing their Jayhawk Conference mark to 17-1 this season. Pratt drops to 5-17 overall and 4-14 in league play.

The win sets up another showdown for the Lady Saints Saturday night in the Greenhouse as they host the Cowley Lady Tigers in another Jayhawk Conference shootout. The two will tip things off at 6:00 Saturday with free tickets for the game available courtesy of our buyout sponsor Wendy’s at their Liberal restaurant.

#7 SEWARD COUNTY/PRATT BOX SCORE<http://www.sewardsaints.com/sports/wbkb/2016-17/boxscores/20170201_iy9h.xml?view=boxscore>

Roy Allen