Hot Shooting Early Leads #7 Lady Saints Over Garden
| Final | 1 | 2 | T | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Seward County Community College (25-2, 13-1) | 45 | 35 | 80 |
|
Garden City Community College (14-15, 5-10) | 26 | 35 | 61 |
Playing in the building where they picked up arguably their best win of the 2014-2015 season over #4 New Mexico earlier this year, the #7 Seward County Lady Saints took the court Wednesday in the Perryman Center in Garden City to take on the rival Lady Busters. It didn't take long for Seward to catch fire as the Lady Saints jumped out to a 23-5 lead against Garden on the Busters Sophomore Night and never looked back, cruising to an 80-61 win to earn their 25th win of the season.
It was all Lady Saints all the time early on against Garden City Wednesday night in a battle between the two long time Southwest Kansas rivals. Seward was red hot to start the game, jumping out to a 15-5 and then 23-5 lead on the Lady Busters as Brooklyn Artis, Rebekah Hatchard, and Kyndal Davis all rained home threes on Garden City's parade. The Busters fought back in front of their home crowd, cutting the Lady Saints lead to single digits at 25-14 before another Seward burst put them back up by 15 following a deep three from Artis with 5:55 to go in the half. The Lady Saints remained hot and Artis and Hatchard canned two more triples with just over 3:00 remaining in the period to push the Seward advantage to 39-20. That is the distance that Seward kept from the Busters at the halftime break as they led it 45-26.
Artis and Hatchard outscored Garden City by themselves in the first 20 minutes, putting up 15 and 12 respectively compared to just 26 Garden City points. Seward shot 47% in the half while the Busters managed just 32% shooting and the Lady Saints banged home 7 three pointers to Garden City's 2.
Seward lost some of their flow in the locker room at half and Garden City slowly crept back into the contest, cutting the Lady Saints lead to 15 6:30 into the second half. The Lady Saints defense stepped up to the plate to hold the lead right there and a corner three from Davis made it a 59-43 game with 8:00 to go. Garden City played at a frenetic pace late in the game to try and make things close, cutting the Seward lead to 11 at one point, but in the end it was too much green and black for the Busters to handle as the Lady Saints cruised to an 80-61 win.
The Lady Saints outside game slowed in the second half as they shot just 14% from the three point line after a 54% first half from deep, but Seward held Garden in check once again, allowing the Busters to shoot just 33% in the half to finish at just under 33% for the game in the victory. Artis came up huge for Seward in the win, scoring 26 points, the second highest scoring output of her Lady Saints career, while hauling down a career best 8 rebounds. Galindo scored 19 for the Lady Saints while Davis and Hatchard both reached double figures as well with 16 and 14 respectively. An under the radar performance for the Lady Saints came from Axelle Bernard who finished the game with just 5 points, but 18 rebounds and 5 blocked shots in the win. The 18 rebounds tie her for 5th most rebounds in a single game in school history.
Seward improves to 25-2 on the year with the victory, notching their seventh consecutive win to move to 13-1 in Jayhawk West Conference play with two games to go. The Lady Saints remain in 2nd place in the conference standings, one game behind Hutchinson who they will take on next Wednesday to wrap up the regular season and two games in front of Butler who they will see next time out on Saturday in the Greenhouse. Garden City continues a frustrating campaign, dropping to 14-15 on the year and 5-10 in Jayhawk West play where they are now in 6th place with just one game left on their schedule.
The Lady Saints will host their final regular season home game of the year on Saturday in the Greenhouse when they take on Butler on Sophomore Recognition Night at 6:00. Free tickets are available courtesy of our buyout sponsor Sharp, McQueen, PA at their offices, or also at Express Lane, Pizza Hut, and Community Bank in Liberal.