27 was the number Friday night for Ell-Saline, but it was anything but magic for the Cardinals.
Scoring 27 will almost always be a winning score in baseball/softball and you can win a fair amount of games with 27 points in football, but it rarely gets it done in basketball. The Lady Cardinals fell 62-27 in the opener Friday night with the Boys losing 68-27. There was a 4th quarter running clock in both games.
GIRLS:
The undefeated Sterling Black Bears are the #1 team in Girls 2-A and they were as good as advertised Friday night.
The Cardinals kept it close in the first quarter, but it was all Sterling after that. Senior Makenna Linden led all scorers with 18. She got a lot of help from fellow seniors Kali Briar (16 points), Bennie Horsch (13) and Sadie Beagley (8).
Senior Raleigh Kramer scored well over half of Ell-Saline’s points netting 16, but no other Cardinal had more than 3.
The Sterling Girls are now 19-0.
TEAM 1 2 3 4 FINAL
Ell-Saline / 10 – 9 – 6 – 2 / 27
Sterling / 17 – 15 – 25 – 5 / 62
BOYS:
Tuesday night Sterling senior Zach Surface set a school record with eight 3-pointers. Friday night, he broke his own record with nine treys—four coming within the first two and a half minutes of the game. He was the game’s top scorer with 29. Senior Cody Oden had 13 for the Black Bears and sophomore Gabe Riffel was also in double digits with 10. Five Black Bears had at least one trey with the team knocking down 14 shots from beyond the arc.
Ell-Saline’s offense struggled most of the night although they did have the game tied at 16 all late in the first quarter. After that Ell-Saline was out scored 52 to 11.
Nobody for the Cardinals even sniffed double figures, but sophomore Marshall Johnson hit a pair of treys to lead the team in scoring with 6 points.
TEAM 1 2 3 4 FINAL
Ell-Saline / 16 – 7 – 3 – 1 / 27
Sterling / 21 – 13 – 20 – 14 / 68
With the losses the Cardinal Girls are now 13-5 while the Boys fell to 3-17. Both teams wrap up the regular season on Tuesday when they host Moundridge.
