Saints Soar Past Comets
KSCB News - November 30, 2015 12:33 pm
The Seward County Saints wrapped up their 2015 non-conference schedule this weekend in Garden City’s Perryman Center, putting a 107-64 beating on Western Iowa Tech’s JV squad on Friday before taking it to the varsity team 108-74 on Saturday to head into Monday’s Jayhawk Conference opener against Butler at 10-1.
It was an interesting start to the Garden City Thanksgiving Classic for the Saints on Friday as they found out that Missouri State-West Plains, their originally scheduled opponent, backed out of the classic to change their game to a tussle with Western Iowa Technical College’s JV squad. Seward’s troubles didn’t stop there. After the opponent change, Western Iowa Tech had troubles on the road which forced the start of their originally scheduled 3:00 contest to be moved back to almost 5:30.
Once things got underway in the Perryman Center, you could tell that the delay effected the Saints as they led the Comets JV team by just six as the midway point of the first half loomed. After the media timeout, the Saints stepped on the gas, outscoring Western Iowa Tech 28-9 over the final 10 minutes of the period to take a comfortable 48-23 lead to the break at half.
Seward continued their dominance of the Comets as the second half got underway, opening their lead up to 31 with 11 minutes remaining before finishing Western Iowa Tech off 107-64 for their ninth win of the season.
The Saints shot 49% in the win, getting off 23 more field goal attempts than the Comets on the afternoon. Niem Stevenson led the Saints with 23 in the win while Marcus Mathieu dropped in 19 and Charles Beauregard had 17.
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On Saturday, the Saints faced a familiar opponent as they again squared off with the Comets, but this time it was Western Iowa Tech’s varsity squad. It didn’t seem to matter much for Seward who jumped out to a 10-8 lead early on behind eight quick points from Delano Jones. Later in the half James Byrd got into the action, scoring five straight for the Saints to put them up 13, 37-24 with just over six minutes left in the period. At the break it was all Seward with the Saints on top of the Comets 49-34.
It didn’t take long as the second half began for the Saints lead to balloon. At the 14:00 mark, the Saints had their lead up to 26 at 65-39 after Stevenson hooked up with Beauregard for a pretty finish on the break. The Saints held the 26 point advantage to the midway point of the second half at 84-58 before running away with a 108-74 victory at the final horn.
Western Iowa Tech had no answer for the Saints as Seward shot 68% in the second half to finish the game at 61% overall. The Saints were also on fire from deep, hitting on 10 of 19 for 53% from the three point line. Byrd led Seward with a career best 22 while Stevenson led four other Saints in double figures with 20.
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The Saints finish their non-conference slate 10-1 with the two victories over the Comets. Things will heat back up for them right away on Monday as they take open Jayhawk Conference play at home in the Greenhouse at 8:00 when they take on the Butler Grizzlies. Free tickets are available courtesy of our buyout sponsor Conestoga at their Liberal location as well as at Pizza Hut, First National Bank and North Hutch’s in Liberal.
Roy Allen
