By ISAAC DEER
TopSports.news
Anna Becker’s 21-point outing helped Seaman's girls basketball team punch their ticket to Saturday's Class 5A sub-state final with a 46-35 home semifinal victory over Salina South.
Becker had a huge third-quarter performance for the Vikings, hitting four 3-point shots in a row and accounting for had all 13 of Seaman’s third-quarter points.
“She definitely doesn’t play like a freshman,” Seaman coach Matt Tinsley said. “The last couple of games she has put us on her back. She had 18 (points) in the second half last game. She’s capable of doing that.”
“She’s a confident player and you can see that.”
Seaman freshman Anna Becker (23) scored 21 points, including 13 in the third quarter, as the Vikings advanced to Saturday's Class 5A sub-state final with a 46-35 win over Salina South. [Photo by Isaac Deer/TSN]
Becker credits all of her teammates in the paint for her individually outstanding third quarter.
“My teammates were finding me for open shots and they were going in for me,” Becker said. “Our posts have developed a lot. We want to get our posts the ball as much as possible. Our posts tonight had the size advantage over (Salina South). Salina was paying a lot of attention to them, so it made life easier for me.”
“Our posts on this team help out the guards a lot.”
Tinsley told TopSports.news after last Friday’s victory over Emporia that they needed to change things up from what they have been comfortable doing.
“The basket seems to get bigger when you go inside-out on offense,” Tinsley said. We want 10 hands on the ball on every possession. We can’t just rely on Anna (Becker) to create shots or rely on Taylin (Stallbaumer) to hit 3s all of the time. We want to move the ball with confidence.”
“We hope to have the same night from our posts on Saturday.”
Seaman girls coach Matt Tinsley talks to his team during Wednesday's Class 5A sub-state semifinal against Salina South. The Vikings advanced with a 46-35 win. [Photo by Isaac Deer/TSN]
Tinsley wanted the guards to consistently and rapidly feed the basketball to Ava Esser, Brooklyn Gormley, Meagan Mills and the other low-post contributors.
The tallest player for Salina South was 5-foot-9, giving Seaman the size advantage.
“I have to give credit to our guards for feeding it great to the post tonight,” Gormley said. “I thought as a team we did a great job rebounding the ball today. It would be nice for the good defense and the offensive rebounds to carry over on (Saturday).”
It wasn’t a flawless four quarters for the Lady Vikes. The game started out slow for them.
In the first quarter, Seaman was only able to put up seven points. The Lady Vikes shot 2-11 from inside the paint and it was a struggle to heat up.
The Lady Vikes came alive in the second quarter. Two 3-point conversions by Stallbaumer and an excellent interior effort from Gormley put Seaman on top before the halftime break.
Seaman came out with firey energy out of the break. The defense played more physically and gave Salina South a lot of trouble in the third quarter.
“I feel like our defense is doing great every single game,” Gormley said. “I thought we did a great job as a team coming out of the break.”
Seaman’s defense held Salina South to a game-low four points. While the defense was thriving, Becker was having a noteworthy third quarter. Becker’s 13-point third quarter extended the Seaman lead to 18 before the fourth quarter.
“We came out in the second half knowing we needed to pick up our energy,” Becker said. “We needed to move the ball more with high energy.
The Lady Vikes only sent the entire Salina South team to the charity stripe just once. They didn’t allow a single free point throughout the four quarters.
Seaman would have too big of a lead for Salina South to catch up in the fourth quarter and the Lady Vikes would go on to win the game.
With the Lady Vikes win, the current winning streak has been extended to six games and are hoping to make it seven on Saturday.
“I don’t want to put pressure on the girls,” Tinsley said. “You hear a lot at this time of year of teams surviving and advancing, I don’t want to convey that message. I told our girls that it’s thriving and advancing. We want to play to thrive. If you go into a game in survival mode, you make too many mistakes.”
“We want to be in attack mode. When you think of attack mode, you don’t have any time to be nervous or timid, you just go out and play.”
Seaman (16-5) will play Andover Central (16-5) Saturday at Seaman for a chance to play in the 5A state tournament.
SEAMAN GIRLS 46, SALINA SOUTH 35
Salina South 8 7 4 16 – 35
Seaman 7 15 13 11 – 46
Seaman (16-5) – Schumman 1 0-0 3, Stallbaumer 4 0-0 10, Becker 7 3-5 21, Gormley 2 2-2 6, Esser 3 0-1 6.
Salina South (7-14) – Peterson 2 (0-0) 5, Arnold 1 (0-0) 2, Herbel 4 (0-0) 11, Hamel 2 (0-0) 6, Harris 3 (0-0) 6, G. Nash 2 (0-1) 5.
3-point goals – Seaman 7 (Becker 4, Stallbaumer 2, Schumann), Salina South 7 (Herbel 3, Hamel 2, G. Nash, Peterson). Total fouls – Seaman 9, Salina South 10. Fouled out – none. Technical fouls – none.
