Following a slow start, the Salina South girls basketball team turned to its bread and butter.

The Cougars forced turnovers and converted into buckets, igniting a 25-2 explosion to buck the Campus Colts 46-32. The victory snapped a four-game losing streak and gave the Cougars their first AVCTL-I win on the season.

South’s offense came out flat, only making its first first goal with 3:45 to play in the first. That allowed Campus to take an 11-5 cushion into the ensuing quarter.

Campus pushed the margin to seven after a three by sophomore Venus Thanaouk. That was the final bucket of the half for the Colts as South used junior Jadyn Zamecnik’s energy to close out the second quarter on a 10-0 run, grabbing a 17-14 advantage.

Zamecnik added two more buckets in the third to go with a pair of makes by seniors Angie Hall and Sydnee Connell, ballooning the lead out to 34-19 through three quarters. Campus had one final punch, slimming the deficit to 10 in the fourth, but the hole was too great.

Zamecnik scored a career-high 10 points off the bench. Hall added nine points while juniors Gretchen Cox and Camdyn Schreiber provided seven each. South improved to 2-6 overall, 1-5 in the league.

The Cougars prepare for the GWAL-AVCTL Challenge on Thursday at Koch Arena. South battles Wichita North with pregame at 3 pm on Y93.7.

CAMPUS 53, SOUTH 46

Salina South trailed by as many as 19 points and allowed 21 offensive rebounds to increase its losing streak to four.

Both defenses shined in the opening quarter as only 20 combined points were put on the scoreboard. After leading 14-8 early in the second, the Colts came back to only be behind 18-17. From there, Campus outscored South 26-6 to go ahead 43-24 toward the later part of the third.

The Cougars had an explosion of their own. South turned to seniors Joey Wilson and Brady McAfee for huge buckets to go with junior Isaac Mitchell’s presence inside, using a 13-1 spurt to only trail 48-43 with 3:24 to go in the game. Unfortunately, South ran out of juice and Campus grabbed a few more offensive rebounds for the win.

Mitchell paced the Cougars with 11 points. Banks and Wilson had 10 each for South, which fell to 1-7 and 1-5 in the league. South takes on Kapaun next at Koch Arena on Thursday following the girls game.

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