No. 5 Lady Saints basketball heads to Midland for tough tests at the WNIT
LIBERAL, Kan. – The fifth-ranked Lady Saints basketball team will get a chance to show its mettle when it plays in the loaded WNIT tournament this weekend at Midland College.
The tournament features eight teams, six which are ranked – three ranked in the top 10, including Seward and the other three in the top 25. The teams are No. 3 Trinity Valley Community College, No. 5 Seward, No. 8 Florida SouthWestern State College Buccaneers, No. 13 Midland College, No. 19 Salt Lake Community College, No. 23 Odessa College Lady and Hill College and Kilgore College Rangers.
Seward will open up the tournament against host Midland on Thursday at 7 p.m. The team will also play Friday and Saturday.
Lady Saints head coach Austin Mefford believes the tournament will be incredibly beneficial to his freshmen-laden squad whether the team wins or not.
"It's going to help our basketball team as a whole," Mefford said. "Will we win one two or three games? I don't know. It's tough to win one game against a ranked team. It's really hard to win two and it's extremely tough to win three against this quality of competition.
"Regardless of the outcome, this should be a positive experience," he continued. "It should help us find some of our weaknesses and what we need to work on moving forward. The quality of competition the first two weekend swasn't as tough and (this weekend) more of our weaknesses will be exposed. At the same time, we'll be able to see our strengths and where we match up with the best in the country and know what we do really well and what we don't that we can build for the conference season and post season."
The Lady Saints have played on back-to-back days this season, but not three games in a row. The string of contests should give a good measure of the team's toughness – both mentally and physically.
"You get to see how mentally tough your team is and how tough physically you are when you're in that third game and both teams are really tired and dragging it out," Mefford said. "It may not be pretty basketball but (you get to see) who could find a way to fight through it and make the most plays when you're tired."
According to Mefford, the players have been buying into the system and there is plenty of talent, which could mean special things in the future.
"We're a lot deeper than last year," he said. "It's made it a lot harder on me. I have to decide who's going in the game and when and who's going to play and how many minutes. That's a good problem to have. It all works itself out in the end. This team has a chance to be very good.
"They're young," he continued. "There's going to be ups and downs. You're going to have to expect that and roll with it. We're freshmen and it's a new thing and it's hard to learn. On the flip side, we're very talented and going to beat some teams that we probably shouldn't and beat them using our athleticism. I'm very pleased with how this team has progressed. They've gotten better and better. There hasn't been a lot of bad days and a lot of going backwards. As long as they'll keep working hard every day and we're moving in the right direction, we'll be fun to watch come later in season.
Seward has five players, averaging double digits in scoring. Karolina Szydlowska leads the way with 17 points per game, Leilani Augmon with 16.5 points, Vanda Cuamba with 15.3 points, Tianna Johnson is averaging 13.8 points and Alanis Hill with 10. 3 points. Freshman Ayanna Smith is averaging 8.3 rebounds and Augmon is averaging 3.3 assists.