Lady Skins Celebrate in Salina

A reason to celebrate.  For the first since winning the Great Bend tournament in 1987, the Liberal Lady Redskins win a mid season tournament championship.  Saturday evening at Mabee Arena at KWU in Salina, the #8 Lady Redskins beat #6 Salina Central 57-53.  Liberal’s Katie Horyna was named the tournament MVP and Ali Lucero was named all tournament.

Liberal jumped off to leads of 8-0 and 12-3 and led 17-8 after one.  As soon as Machia Mullens picked up her second foul, the Lady Mustangs rallied and led 22-21 at the half.  Liberal heated up in the second half and made six straight three pointers.  LHS led 42-29 toward the end of the third and led 42-32 after three.  The Lady Red led 50-34 with 5:04 to play when the game turned Salina Central’s way again.  Mullens picked up a fourth foul, Liberal became a bit complacent offensively, and the Lady Mustangs made four straight 3’s.  They used a 10-0 run to make it 50-44.  Liberal led 51-44 with 1:50 to play after a Horyna free throw.  LHS led 52-47 with 1:35 to play.  Salina Central cut the lead to three at 53-50 after Liberal missed two free throws and Central hit a three.  Salina Central cut the lead to 55-53 with nine seconds left.  Machia Mullens made 4-4 free throws in the closing seconds to send LHS into the winners circle.

Katie Horyna was the best player in the tournament and scored 16.  Mullens had 13 and Lucero had 10.

Liberal never won the Colby Orange and Black Classic or the Newton tournament.   So this was a program first.  Liberal is 11-1 and Salina Central is 9-3.  Liberal hosts Hugoton Friday night at 6 with Redskin Pre-game at 5:45 on 1270 and kscbnews.net.