Pictured above- SE of Saline Girls Basketball Coach Shauna Smith

When Southeast of Saline coach Shauna Smith engages in small talk with her Trojans girls basketball team, don’t for a minute think of it as trivial.

Quite the opposite.

It is all about competing against much taller opponents and turning what could pass for a weakness into strength.

“When we went to state (in 2022), we were so undersized, and that’s kind of how we are now,” Smith said of her Trojans, who despite a lineup with no starter taller than 5-foot-7, is riding a seven-game winning streak that last weekend included its first-ever Sterling Invitational Tournament championship. “We’ve just learned to play that way.

“People that are (bigger), they just don’t scare us. We just have to play a different way.”

That way, built on speed, quickness and balance, has worked to the tune of a 12-3 record heading into Friday’s big North Central Activities Association matchup at Ellsworth (10-3).

“We don’t just roll the ball out and play,” said Smith, now in her 10th season as Southeast coach. “We scout hard, we prepare our kids really hard, and I think on a team like we have, we have to do that because of our size and just knowing what they’re doing.”

“Once they start buying into that, it makes a huge difference, and every year it takes a little bit of an adjustment of people buying into why we’re doing what we’re doing.”

While the Trojans have learned to live with their literal shortcomings, it took them some time to fully embrace a style of play that turned the from a “Little Engine That Could,” into an engine that would.

“After Christmas break, we really focused on getting our defense and establishing that, because it has been a tradition that we have good defense,” said senior guard Abigail Pearson, a three-year starter.

Senior Abigail Pearson

Defense, Smith added, is non-negotiable. That was especially evident in the Sterling tournament, where the Trojans did not allow 30 points in any of their three games while breezing past Hutchinson Trinity (79-28), Scott City (45-23) and finally Hugoton (43-21) for the championship.

“You don’t play defense, you’re probably not going to play for me,” Smith said Wednesday, a day after the Trojans overcame a slow offensive start in a 60-25 road victory over Republic County. “Your defense leads to offense, and I always tell them, defense travels with you every single night.”

While defensive pressure allows the Trojans to play at a faster pace offensively, a multitude of weapons also allows them to attack from anywhere on the court. Sophomore Kyiah Samuelson leads the team in scoring with 12 points per game, but Pearson, sophomore guard Reese Heinrich and sophomore reserve guard Taryn Goetz all average between eight and nine points.

Pearson, senior post Suttyn Douglas, Samuelson, Heinrich and junior Regan Duran are the starters, but six different Trojans have led the team in scoring this season.

“It’s definitely nice because somebody always goes off,” said Douglas, who at 5-7 plays the post and leads the team in rebounding with six per game. “And it’s never the same person, it’s everyone.”

Senior Suttyn Douglas

Not to be overlooked in Southeast’s recent surge, is Pearson’s return to the lineup. After breaking her hand in the second game of the season, she missed the next six, including all three Trojan losses against Beloit, Hillsboro and Sacred Heart.

“You can’t even describe how big a difference it makes,” Douglas said. “Her on the sideline was great, just because she helped even from the sideline, but on the court, she just makes such a difference offensively, but defensively, too.”

“She’s just a leader on the court and she’s always willing to do anything for the team, which is nice.”

Pearson, whose older sister Mallory was a standout on Southeast’s most recent state tournament team in 2022, is the first to admit that watching from the bench was a challenge.

“I had never had an injury to this extent,” she said. “Usually, I just played through it, but obviously I couldn’t, so that was tough. But I feel like I learned to be a leader in a different way.”

If there was a silver lining to Pearson’s absence it was the emergence of 6-foot-1 senior Charlotte Knopf, who stepped into the starting lineup for those six games.

“She has come so far this season,” Smith said of Knopf, the only 6-footer on the roster. “Every single game, you see here getting more and more comfortable.”

“She didn’t start playing until her freshman year, but she’s really athletic.”

The Trojans still have six more regular-season games, all in the rugged NCAA, but winning the Sterling tournament for the first time clearly was a momentum-builder.

“I think especially last year, making it to the championship and then not quite winning it kind of left the whole team wanting to come back and win it,” Douglas said. “That’s definitely the best we’ve played so far, and I feel like we just keep building.”

To get back to the Class 3A state tournament in Hutchinson for the second time under Smith, Southeast first must navigate a challenging Haven sub-state tournament that includes Halstead, Hesston and Cheney, among others. Last year the Trojans finished with a 15-6 record but fell to Riley County in the sub-state semifinals.

“It’s definitely one of our goals,” Douglas said.

One that is attainable but certainly not guaranteed, Smith added.

“I feel like we’re a lot like we were (in 2022), but it’s not how you’re playing at the first of the season, it’s how we’re playing at the end,” Smith sad. “Last year we thought we had a good chance and we hit a Riley County team that was really well coached, and we didn’t execute that game.”

“It takes one night that you don’t execute and your season’s over with. But we’re playing well and doing things well, and we just have to keep rolling with it.”