Jay Daubenberger
After a week removed from their last game, the Seward County Lady Saints women’s basketball team went down south to Texas where they competed tooth and nail with the Lady Wranglers of Cisco and were able to take down their foe in overtime 93-86 on the road to improve to 2-1 on the season.
The game started slow for Seward County as Cisco was able to pull out in front first only four minutes into the quarter 12-7 before the Lady Saints were finally able to find their rhythm and go on a 6-0 run to take the lead 13-12 off a spot-up jumper from Jamia Carter. Their run continued to grow as Seward County finished the first quarter on a 14-5 run over the Lady Wranglers to end the first ten minutes of action up 25-17.
Cisco did not go away quietly as they opened the second quarter of action with an 8-0 run to lock up the score 25-25 and it was a dog fight from that point on between the Lady Saints and Lady Wranglers with both sides fighting to grab hold of the lead. Seward County was able to pull in front by three off a turnaround jumper from Ari Gordon to pull ahead 32-29 but Cisco once again created a run of their own to go 10-4 over the last five minutes of the quarter to head into halftime ahead of the Lady Saints 39-36.
In the third Seward County came back with a vengeance as they brought the Lady Wranglers lead down and eventually put themselves to within one point off a coast-to-coast drive from Carter that ended in an easy fast break layup for the sophomore guard. Moments later she struck again as Carter knocked down a three-pointer from the corner to help keep the score close before Kayla Peoples snuck her way down through traffic for a layup to put the Lady Saints in front 57-55. A quick two points from Cisco locked the score back up at 57-57 with time expiring in the third to enter the fourth with score knotted up.
Seward County continued to fight through the fourth quarter of action with Gordon jumping sky high for an offensive rebound and found Xoe Rosalez wide open for an easy two points to put SCCC ahead 65-64 over the Lady Wranglers. The score continued to shift back and forth between the two adversaries with Carter once again slicing and dicing her way to the basket to tie the score up at 76 with under two minutes left to go. Cisco however was able to knock down a three-pointer from the top of the arc to move back ahead by three with under a minute to go to force a Seward County timeout to try and make something happen. A perfectly drawn up play sent the ball into the hands of Allie Myers who used her post skills to get the layup and a timely steal by Rosalez on the inbound led to a foul that put her at the line where she was able to tie up the game in the final seconds to force overtime with the score deadlocked at 79.
Overtime was all Lady Saints from the start as they made their way in front and pulled the lead even further as time wound down. Cisco looked to be within reach until a clutch three-pointer from the corner by Rosalez allowed Seward County to finally wrap up the Lady Wranglers and finish overtime with a 14-7 score and a final score of 93-86 to secure their second win of the season.
The Lady Saints now improve to 2-1 on the 2023-2024 season and will begin Jayhawk conference action on Saturday when they travel to Cloud County for a 2:00 PM tip-off.