Lady Cougars Win Salina Invitational Basketball Tournament

Todd Pittenger - Sat 07:35 PM 01/19/2013

The Salina South Lady Cougars won a thriller over cross-town rival Salina Central Saturday night to win the Salina Invitational Basketball Tournament.

Salina South scored the first four points of the game before the Mustangs settled down, and started to trade buckets with the Cougars. The score was tied 7 - 7 after the first quarter.

The Lady Mustangs came out strong to start the second quarter. They took a 16 - 13 lead into the locker room.

Central picked up where it left off to begin the third quarter, and built an eight point lead. The Lady Cougars began to chip away at the lead. They cut it to one, with Central leading 28 - 27 at the end of the quarter.

South took its first lead of the second half at 32 -30 on a Megan Holloway three pointer with 5:45 left in the game.

Shaelyn Martin answered for the Mustangs with a steal, and a layup, to tie the score.

With the score tied at 33, Cassidy Cook came up big for South, scoring the next four points. With 2:22 left in the game she buried a short jump shot to give the Cougars the lead back. Then with :56 left in the game she coolly hit the front end of a one and one, and then swished the second shot to give the Cougars a four point lead.

Mackenzie Morris hit a layup for the Mustangs with :25 left in the game to cut the lead back to two.

The Cougars then took care of business the rest of the way, connecting on four consecutive free throws to ice the game. The final score was 41 - 35.

Hailey Mayfield, Shaelyn Martin, and Emily Wood were all named to the All Tournament Team for the Mustangs, while Janai Mitchell and Megan Holloway were for Salina South. Holloway was also named the Tournament Most Valuable Player.

Carly Gassman from Abilene and Mckenzie Haynes from Salina South were named the Tournament Most Inspirational Players. Both girls returned a to play for their teams this season after battling cancer.

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