Jay Daubenberger

Seward County took the court with the Colby Trojans with key standings implications on the line where despite a back-and-forth battle between the two teams, it was Colby who grabbed the five-point win 80-75 over the Saints on the road.

Seward County struck first in the opening minutes against the Trojans as Carson Bennett banked in a long-range triple that was followed by a steal and score from Mathias M’Madi to five the Saints an 11-6 lead four minutes in. Colby responded with an 11-3 run to put them in front for the first time going into the under 12:00 media timeout but it was Jaden Martin who kept SCCC in reach with some strong post moves to score and added to his season long highlight real with a steal on defense that he drove down the court for a high flying dunk to cut the Saints’ deficit down to four at 23-19. Nathan Jones entered in an used his long arms to create space down low and score on a reverse layup before Martin wrapped up the first half of action with an athletic up and under move to score another two points and keep the difference in single digits as Seward County trailed at the break 38-30.

A great pass by Dave Olaniyi led to an alley-oop score by Martin to open the second half and spark an offensive run for the Saints with a 12-4 run to bring the score back to within two at 44-42 and force Colby into a timeout four minutes in. Olaniyi kept the scoring run alive with a drive down the lane for two before foul trouble resulted in a parade at the free throw line where M’Madi sunk a pair to tie the score up at 64 a piece. With less than two minutes to go Xavier Alexander nailed a couple of clutch shots at the charity stripe to trim the Trojan lead down to one but Seward County could never lock the score up again as Colby surpassed them 80-75 to take the win.

The Saints now fall to 7-21 overall on the 2023-24 season and sit at 5-17 in the Jayhawk conference which would put them as the final seed in the Region VI Tournament a week from Saturday. They will look to bounce back to try and move their way back up the standings when they face off with Independence at 2:00 PM this Saturday on the road.