Liberal, Kansas – Five sophomores were honored for the Saints on Wednesday night where the Seward County Saints ended their regular season against the Pratt Beavers inside of the Green House and despite a career high of 37 points for Mathias M’Madi, the Saints fell in their regular season finale 88-84 before entering the Region VI Tournament this weekend.
Highlights began in the first ten seconds of the matchup as Dave Olaniyi tossed up the alley-oop pass which Jaden Martin slammed down to push ahead first and a few minutes later Carson Bennett drained a triple to put Seward County ahead 9-4 over Pratt. The Beavers quickly closed the gap and took a one-point lead over the Saints for a few seconds before Mervin Hope was able to score off a steal to retake the lead 11-10. Amir Whitlock slashed his way down the lane for an easy score at the rim to keep the SCCC lead alive and a second chance score from Olaniyi helped the Saints remain strong before the Beavers went on another run to grab the lead once again 27-25 entering the under four media timeout. A triple by Whitlock inched Seward County ahead once again over Pratt while a last second mid-range jumper from M’Madi beat the halftime buzzer to enter the break up by one 39-38 Saints.
It was back and forth through the first five minutes of the second half with M’Madi dominating the offensive end with eleven straight points from the France native to keep the Saints within five before the first media timeout of the half. A second chance score from Lovasoa Andriatsarafara allowed Seward County to remain in the fight and a corner three from Nathan Jones knotted the score up at 64-64. Pratt responded with a 10-0 run to move up to a 74-64 lead that SCCC could not recover from despite some high major level shots from M’Madi keeping the Saints within four before the final buzzer sounded to give the Beavers an 88-84 win.
M’Madi ended the night with a career high of 37 points to end the regular season while Jones recorded a double-double of 10 points and 11 rebounds on sophomore night.
Seward County finishes the regular season 8-22 overall while falling to 6-18 in conference action to finish the season as the 12th seed in the KJCCC standings. They will now begin their postseason action on Saturday as they will hit the road throughout the Region VI Tournametn and start off against the fifth seeded Cloud County.
