Picture courtesy of Tanner Colvin

The game was long over, but Salina South senior Gavin DeVoe was in no hurry to leave the court Friday night at Kansas Wesleyan’s Mabee Arena. In fact, several of his Cougar teammates lingered as well, enjoying the moment.

“It’s the first time in my high school career,” DeVoe said after South held off Salina Central, 59-55, ending a five-game losing streak against its crosstown rival. “It definitely feels great to get it done my senior year with my friends and my teammates, because I know we’ve worked so hard.”

It was DeVoe, the Cougars’ 6-foot-6 center, who helped seal the victory with a put-back off a missed free throw to make it a two-possession game with 16 seconds left. South then came up with a steal, ending three years of futility against Central dating back to December 2021.

Senior guard Easton Wilcox, who put South in front to stay on a driving layup with one minute left, was equally excited with the outcome.

“Especially how we did it at the end in a close game,” said Wilcox, who scored six of his 13 points in the fourth quarter after Central took a 45-42 lead into the final period. “I’ve never beaten Central before in my career — football, basketball, nothing.”

“So, it’s exciting. Nothing is better than this.”

But beating rival Central (1-4) meant more for the Cougars than ending a skid against their rivals. It pushed their season record to 5-0 with only a pair of road games at Newton on Tuesday and Valley Center on Friday remaining before Christmas break.

Not bad for a team that finished 7-14 a year ago and won a combined four games the two seasons before that.

“We’ve been putting in a lot of work in the offseason in the last three years,” DeVoe said. “We’ve been making progress, and it just feels amazing to finally finish it and beat our crosstown rivals, and now we’re looking forward to the rest of the season.

“Being 5-0 is a great feeling, and hopefully we can go into Christmas break undefeated.”

South opened its season by sweeping its own tournament, knocking off Liberal (64-42), McPherson (58-43) and Campus (52-46), then handing Arkansas City at home, 57-38. The games at Newton (0-5) and Valley Center (4-0) will be the Cougars’ first two outside of Salina.

But their early success at home has South confident that it can continue to thrive on the road.

“We’ve already won more games than my sophomore year,” said DeVoe, who is the Cougars’ third-leading scorer with 9.4 points per game on a team-best 56% shooting and leads the team in rebounding at 7.6. “That’s always a good feeling, and we want to keep working.”

“We’re still hungry and we’re not going to stop here.”

South coach Jason Hooper had a feeling going into the season that this could be a breakout year for his Cougars. They start four seniors and one junior, all in their third year as key contributors.

“I’ve been in this situation a couple of times throughout my career where we’ve had a young group that ended up playing a lot of minutes for us when they were sophomores and juniors, and we knew as they continued to mature that they were going to continue to get better,” Hooper said. “When that senior year comes around, typically it’s been a pretty fun season, and we’ve been able to find a few wins.”

“So, I anticipated that that a little bit this year, and I’m so happy for our kids. They’re 5-0 right now, and to get (the Central game) under our belt, this is always a very stressful game just because of the rivalry situation.”

The experience already is paying dividends, both on and off the court, according to Wilcox.

“We’re not so young this year and we’re more like a family,” he said. “We’re not selfish and we play good ball with each other.”

“Going into this season, we thought this was it. We’ve played together our whole high school careers. The goal is going into Christmas break 7-0 and then just keep going game-for-game from there.”

South has not relied on any one player to carry the load on either side of the floor.

All five starters average better than eight points per game with Sawyer Walker leading the way at 10.4. Junior win Kobie Henley adds 9.6 and is shooting 47% from 3-point range, followed by DeVoe at 9.4, point guard Jaxon Myers at 8.8 and Wilcox at 8.4.

“We’re going to be a balanced scoring team all year long,” Hooper said. “People are going to try to take certain pieces away, and that means somebody else is going to have a great night.”

“I think we’re a hard team to stop and a hard team to guard because we have multiple scorers. And as long as we can keep sharing the ball and not being selfish, I think that will be to our advantage down the stretch.”

Beating Central clearly was a step in the right direction for the Cougars, but they remain determined to keep the ball rolling.

“We’re going to keep on going and keep working hard in practice,” DeVoe said. “But this is a huge moment for us as a team, and I’m glad we finally broke that seal that was there forever.”