Seward Wins Shootout With Cloud

When Seward County and Cloud County hookup on the floor in women's basketball it is usually a low scoring grinder between the two Jayhawk West rivals.  Monday night when they got together in Concordia it was expected to be nothing different than that once again, but fans who made the long trip to Bryant Gymnasium got something far different as the Lady Saints came from behind to win an 87-80 shootout in the second highest scoring battle between the Lady Saints and Lady T-Birds all time. 

A struggling Cloud team was hot right from the start against Seward on a Big Monday on their home floor, jumping out to a 13-8 lead in the opening minutes of the contest.  The Lady Saints found their stroke and a Rebekah Hatchard three gave them a 17-15 lead two minutes later followed by back to back threes from Daniela Galindo to stretch the Seward advantage to 27-21 at the midway point of the first half.  The Lady Saints went cold from there, going without a point for the next 4:25 as the T-Birds came back to tie the score at 27.  It was a back and forth battle for the final four minutes of the first half and at the break it was a 41-39 game in favor of Cloud County. 

Seward outshot Cloud 48% to 44% in the first half but the T-Birds dominated the glass, outrebounding Seward 26-12 including 13 offensive rebounds to get up 14 more field goal attempts than the Lady Saints in the first 20 minutes.  Galindo led Seward with 18 first half points while Cloud's Luize Skrastina was on fire for the T-Birds, scoring 16 first half points. 

Cloud remained hot out of the halftime break, quickly stretching their lead to its largest of the game at 49-42.  Seward kept on shooting though and just moments later the Lady Saints were back to within one after threes from Brooklyn Artis and Daniela Galindo.  With 11:38 remaining Hatchard canned a three of her own to give Seward the lead back 55-54.   It remained a highly contested battle through the middle portion of the half and with 7:02 to go the game was all tied up at 67.  Seward took the lead back with 4:55 to go on a left handed finish by Artis and Seward went up by nine with just under 2:00 remaining.  A three followed by a steal and a score by the T-Birds made it a five point game at 80-75 with 1:35 left, but Artis came up big again on the Lady Saints next possession, making a contested shot through contact to give the Seward a seven point lead and effectively slam the door on the home team.  Seward went on to win 87-80 to make the long bus ride back to Liberal much more enjoyable for the gals in green. 

The game was the second highest scoring battle of all time between the two with a combined 167 points, topped only by a 112-60 Seward win all the way back in 1999.  The Lady Saints shot 57% in the second half to finish at 53% overall in the game while slowing Cloud down to 40% shooting in the second half to put them at 42% in the contest.  It was another good shooting effort from long distance for the Lady Saints where they canned 11 threes at a clip of 42% while the T-Birds did struggle from deep, shooting just 28% from three point land in the loss.  Galindo scored a career high 28 points for the Lady Saints and finished just one three pointer away from the school record with 7 triples on the night.  Artis had a big game as well for the Lady Saints, scoring 22 and dishing out 3 assists.  Axelle Bernard notched another double-double for Seward on the inside, going 6 for 10 from the field to finish with 13 points to go along with 12 rebounds. 

#7 Seward improves to 23-2 on the year and 11-1 in Jayhawk West play with the victory while Cloud County continues a tough season, dropping to 10-14 overall and 3-8 in conference play where they fall to 8^th place in the Jayhawk West standings. 

The Lady Saints will enjoy their second half bye on Wednesday before returning home on Saturday on Homecoming Night in the Greenhouse where they will take on Dodge City at 6:00.  Free tickets are available courtesy of our buyout sponsor Pizza Hut at any of their Liberal locations. 

#7 SEWARD COUNTY/CLOUD COUNTY BOX SCORE