Sewardsaints.com
The Seward County Lady Saints outscored the Colby Trojans 43-27 in the second half on the way to a 72-62 home win at The Greenhouse Saturday afternoon.
Trailing by as much as 17 in the first half, the Lady Saints (7-1, 2-0 KJCCC) closed the gap to six points by halftime and used the 43-27 second half advantage to move to 2-0 in league play for the first time since the 2020-21 season. Colby falls to 4-4 overall, 1-1 in the KJCCC.
Seward shot progressively better in each quarter finishing the game shooting 66.7 percent from the field scoring a game-high 24 points in the fourth quarter.
Avery Marchino finished with a game-high 26 points to go with five rebounds and four assists. It marks her fourth straight game scoring 20 or more points and sixth 20-point game of the season. She also poured in 26 points earlier this week in Seward's win at Cloud County.
The Lady Saints trailed 19-11 after the first quarter as Colby connected on five triples shooting 5-8 from distance with Amisha Russell drilling four on her own.
Colby opened the second quarter scoring the first seven points building their lead to 16 at 27-11 before two A'Neya Chambers free throws got the Lady Saints on the board. A Logan Nelson three for Colby with 6:47 to go in the quarter made it 30-13 giving them their biggest lead of the game. From that point on, Seward outscored them 16-5 until halftime as Kimora Fagan hit two threes and Marchino added five points of her own making it 35-29 at the break.
Seward used a 12-0 run scoring the last eight points of the second quarter and the first four points of the third quarter to pull within two at 35-33.
The third quarter saw the teams trade buckets as SCCC edged Colby out 19-15 in the frame. Seward nabbed its first lead since they led 2-0 at the 2:35 mark when RaMya Kennedy put in a layup. The teams traded buckets but Colby entered the fourth quarter ahead 50-48.
Seward's fourth quarter was the difference maker as they doubled up Colby 24-12. Marchino scored 12 of her 26 points in the fourth quarter shooting 5-7 while the team converted 6-7 free throws. The Lady Saints largest lead came with 36 seconds remaining as a Destiny Alexander free throw made it 71-60.
Both teams shot it well as Seward finished at 48.9 percent (23-47) and Colby 47.2 percent (25-53). Seward finished 18-19 from the charity stripe while Colby was just 3-5. Seward outrebounded Colby 29-24 and each team turned the ball over 19 times.
Jera Kruleski led Colby with 18 points and five rebounds. Nelson finished with 10 assists.
Fagan finished with 10 points, four steals, three assists and three rebounds for Seward. Kennedy added a season-high 10 points off the bench, Chambers finished with five points and a game-high nine rebounds and Alexander had eight points and four rebounds.
The Saints host nationally ranked Coffeyville on Tuesday at 6 p.m. Pepsi is the game sponsor and tickets are available at Hutch's on North Kansas, Toot'N Totum on N. Western, the SCCC Bookstore and the SCCC Hobble Building.
