Lady Saints Knock Off Beavers for Third Straight Win
Liberal, Kansas – Coming off back-to-back wins over the last week the Seward County Lady Saints women's basketball team hit the road to take on the Pratt Beavers where the sophomore duo of Naomi Aragonez and Alianna Colon combined for 30 points in a 66-61-point win that gave SCCC their third straight win to end the first half of Jayhawk conference action.
The first quarter of action was a defensive battle through the first five minutes with neither side able to connect on more than two shots as Colon slashed her way down to the basket for her first points of the game and give SCCC a 5-4 lead heading into the media timeout. Xoe Rosalez came out of the timeout with a huge corner three for the Lady Saints to push their lead to four, but an 8-0 run by the Beavers ended the quarter with Pratt ahead 12-8 over Seward County.
As always Allie Myers was a constant force on the boards, and she continued that trend with a big offensive rebound that quickly turned into an easy two points after Myers found a cutting Ari Gordon that allowed Seward County to retake the lead at 13-12. Aragonez entered in off the bench and immediately made an impact for the Lady Saints, scoring three points the old fashion way with a drive by layup plus the foul and then scored another three from beyond the arc to put SCCC's lead at 25-22 with under four minutes remaining. The Beavers managed to answer back and jump back ahead by six until Aragonez connected on a pull-up jumper in the final seconds of the first half to enter the break trailing the Beavers 35-31.
Colon opened the third quarter with a quick three-pointer in the first ten seconds to bring the Pratt lead down to one and a big steal by Gordon led straight to a fast break layup followed by an offensive putback to keep the Lady Saints within reach at 40-39. Colon continued to light it up from long range as the sophomore knocked in her fourth three of the afternoon to give Seward County the lead 43-42 and SCCC refused to take their foot off the gas, going on a 10-2 run capitalized by back-to-back paint scores from Myers and a late steal and score to end the third up 53-44 over Pratt.
It was raining from three for Seward County and Rosalez kept it pouring with a huge long range bomb off a slip screen to keep the SCCC lead alive 60-52 going into the media timeout and Myers continued to dominate with her 18th rebound of the night that led to a pair of second chance points that secured her another double-double on the season which allowed the Lady Saitns to seal the deal 66-61 over the Pratt Beavers and increase their win streak to three.
Aragonez and Colon each scored 15 points to combine for almost half of the Lady Saints points while Gordon recorded her second straight double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds while Myers recorded her fifth double-double of the season, scoring 10 points and hauling in 21 rebounds.
The Lady Saints now reach double digits in the win column with a 10-8 overall record in the 2023-24 season while improving to .500 in Jayhawk conference action at 6-6. Seward County now enters the second half of KJCCC play when they face off against the Cloud County Thunderbirds inside of the Green House this upcoming Wednesday in a 6:00 PM tip-off.