Sewardsaints.com
The Seward Lady Saints fell to Butler in a 61-53 road loss Wednesday.
The Lady Saints dropped to 8-7 in the Jayhawk Conference and 13-8 overall. SCCC continues its road trip with a game at Pratt on Saturday at 2 p.m.
It was a close contest with both teams battling with the outcome in doubt until the final minutes. The Grizzlies had strong first and third quarters, leading 19-15 after one, holding a 33-30 margin at the half and building a 48-40 advantage through three quarters.
Seward opened the final stanza with an 11-5 burst and whittled the margin down to two, 53-51, on an Avery Marchino jumper at the 2:48 mark. That would be as close as the Lady Saints would get. The Grizzlies went on an 8-2 run, powered by going to 6-for-8 from the free-throw line, to close the game and earn the win.
The difference was three-point shooting and free-throw attempts.
The Lady Saints once again struggled from the outside, hitting 1-of-15 from three-point range, and got to the free-throw line only eight times (6-of-8). The Grizzlies went 4-of-16 from three and went to the free-throw line 27 times, scoring 19 points from the charity stripe.
Overall shooting, Seward was 23-of-62 (37.1 percent) while Butler was 19-of-50 (38 percent).
Marchino netted a team-high 18 points and Ari Gordon had 17 points, six rebounds and four steals for the Lady Saints.
Ashley Singhateh had 22 points and 11 rebounds and Kenzie Galliart added 12 points and 11 rebounds for the Grizzles, who improved to 10-4 in conference play, 15-4 overall and won their fourth straight game.
