Jay Daubenberger
Saturday afternoon the Seward County Lady Saints women’s basketball team made a trip to Goodland, Kansas to take on the NW Kansas Tech Mavericks where career highs from Allie Myers and Naomi Aragonez led to an emphatic win to grab their second win of the season over NWKT and complete the season sweep.
Seward County got the scoring started early as back-to-back putbacks from Myers and Ari Gordon created a quick 4-0 lead that continued to grow as Myers later connected for a corner triple to make it midway through the first as part of a 16-0 start. Aragonez entered in off the bench and made an immediate impact, slashing down the lane for a last second bucket to push the Seward County lead to double figures at 22-10.
Xoe Rosalez opened the second by putting her defender on skates with a killer crossover towards the basket for another easy score to grow the Lady Saints lead even further 27-13 and despite a rough stretch for SCCC over the next few minutes, defense prevented the Mavs from getting close as they went into the media timeout with Seward County ahead 30-20. Aragonez splashed home a three from long range off a dime by Myers to keep the lead strong 35-20 with two minutes to go and were able to enter the halftime break far ahead at 42-28 on the road.
Alianna Colon cashed in a big three in the opening minutes of the third to halt the Mavs momentum to keep the lead at fifteen 48-33 and created an offensive onslaught for the Lady Saints. A quick pull up jumper by Aragonez out of the media timeout gave her a new season high of 16 points while putting the score at 58-42 while Rosalez once again broke the ankles of a Maverick defender before kicking it to Kayla Peoples on the wing for a knockdown three-pointer that put Seward County over the sixty-point mark before wrapping up the quarter ahead 66-55.
The Lady Saints continued their scoring success in the fourth as Myers set a new career high off a steal and score for the green and white to give SCCC a 76-59 advantage while Colon cashed in her third three of the game off the inbound pass to make it 81-68. Gordon drove her way down the lane for an easy bucket plus the foul to hold strong to the lead 87-70 before foul trouble for the Mavs led to a parade to the free throw line that created the first career points for E’lasia Yarbrough before finally wrapping up with another Lady Saints win 93-78.
Seward County won the rebound by +17 over NW Kansas Tech thanks in big part to 18 rebounds by Myers who also scored a career high of 30 points. Aragonez tied her career high of 18 points thanks to a perfect 7/7 from the free throw line while Rosalez added on 13 and Gordon chipped in 11.
The Lady Saints improve to a 13-9 overall record to start the month of February and sit at 9-7 in Jayhawk conference action. They will take the next week off to put their attention towards Coffeyville who will come into the Green House next Saturday for a 2:00 PM matchup.
