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By Josh Lewis, Writer

For the third year in a row, West Washington opened up their season with a win over the Lions. Salem struggled to get shots against the West Washington zone defense, while the Senators were able to keep Salem at arms reach late from the free throw line, shooting 24 to the Lions 2 to win 64-58.

Salem started off hot from the three point line to open the game. Kaiden Romero-Hembree and Adam Mull hit back to back threes to give the Lions the early 6-1 edge. Holden Russell hit a bucket to cut the lead down but Romero-Hembree hit another triple to keep the Lions rolling early. A layup from Mull and a jumper from Braxton Dean gave the Lions a 15-9 lead before Russell hit a three to cut it 15-12 with 13 seconds left in the opening quarter.

Back to back triples from Romero-Hembree had Salem pulling away to start the second quarter. Jackson Brough hit a jumper to give Salem their largest lead 23-14. But fouls and turnovers started to mount for the Lions and West Washington started to live at the charity stripe, a trend for the rest of the game.

Russell hit two free throws to cut the Lions lead down 27-22. Carson Albertson hit a three off the bench for Salem to push the lead back out 30-25. Mull scored with about 40 seconds left to give the Lions a 32-27 advantage going into the locker room.

To open the second half Russell hit two more from the stripe and Hayden Morrow hit a three to tie the game up at 32. A three from Colton Brown gave West Washington their first lead thanks to a couple of early Salem turnovers. Romero-Hembree stopped the run with a triple of his own and another bucket in the post. Russell tied the game back up with a three and an old fashioned three point play. Free throws from Morrow gave the Senators the lead back and another old-fashioned three point play from Russell with 1.7 left in the quarter gave West Washington a 49-41 lead going into the final stanza.

Salem tried to hang around early in the fourth. Mull scored off a steal and Evan Lloyd got a three to fall to make it 51-48, but Brown answered with a three on the other end. Russell converted another three point play to push the lead out 61-52 and put the finishing touches on the win.

	1	2	3	4	Total
WW	12	15	24	13	64
SHS	15	17	9	17	58

WW scoring: Morrow 11, Russell 32, Ables 2, Marrs 2, C. Brown 13, T. Brown 2, Batt 2

SHS scoring: Mull 15, Schocke 2, Lloyd 3, Dean 11, Brough 4, Albertson 3, Romero-Hembree 17

Threes: Morrow, Russell 2, C. Brown 2, Mull, Lloyd, Dean, Romero-Hembree 5, Albertson

SHS WW BBall 4 Nash Ables saves a loose ball.

SHS WW BBall 3 Kaiden Romero-Hembree goes up for 2 of his team high 17.

SHS WW BBall 6 Holden Russell lets a three ball fly.

Photos by Josh Lewis.

Addison Smith gets an easy two of her game high 18 points.

By Josh Lewis, Writer

For the first time since the 2016-17 season, the Eastern Lady Musketeers topped the Lady Lions of Salem. Eastern’s defense forced turnovers in waves to keep Salem from gaining any kind of momentum on offense. Eastern forced 35 turnovers to help them put Salem away 69-20.

Eastern Head Coach Taylor Drury said she thought her team played a complete game against Salem. “This week was all about us. We hadn’t played our version of basketball like I wanted us to all year. I thought we came out and tried to do that. We played as a unit offensively and defensively. I was very pleased with that as far as everything goes.”

Eastern took an early lead thanks to the sharp shooting thanks to a couple of threes from Bailey Trainor to put the Musketeers ahead 11-2. Turnovers for the Lions as Addison Smith hit a three to push the lead 16-3. Alexis Maudlin got a floater to fall to make it a 18-5 game late in the first.

Trainor drained another three for Eastern to open the second quarter and the lead ballooned to 25-5. Rachel Little came off the bench for Salem and scored two straight baskets to cut the lead 30-10. Abby Hardy hit two free throws, but Eastern just kept plugging away and built up a 37-13 lead heading into the break.

“I felt like we might have potential to do that going through the season. I would like to capitalize on that more often,” said Drury. “Tonight we got the chance to debut it and see how it looked and see what we need to work on. It looked pretty good. There are some things we have to tweak but overall I was pretty happy with it.”

The Smith sisters continued their barrage for Eastern in the second quarter. Addison found Avery for a layup and then Addison got a bucket of her own to push the lead to 53-18 and Eastern cruised to their win from there.

Eastern will host Henryville on Wednesday while Salem will host West Washington on Tuesday.

SHS scoring: A. Hardy 2, Little 4, Maudlin 3, K. Hardy 5, Maynard 2, Walters 1, Wilson 3

EHS scoring: Trainor 11, Burton 8, Ad. Smith 18, Hauner 5, Av. Smith 7, Robbins 13, Brawner 5, Jackson 2

Threes: K. Hardy, Trainor 3, Ad. Smith, Hauner, Robbins

	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Total
SHS	5	8	5	2	20
EHS	20	17	19	13	69

SHS LL Bball 3 Alexis Maudlin and Sidney Burton fight over the ball.

SHS LL Bball 2 Sydney Wilson works for a bucket in the paint.

Congratulations to the Salem Lions 8th grade girls basketball team as they went 3-0 this Saturday to win the Randy Johnson Tip-Off Tournament!

Hanover College freshman Lanie Roberts finished in sixth place in women’s cross country during a recent Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) meet. Hanover won the conference.

The HCAC includes institutions from Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio and is affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) Division III.

Roberts graduated from Salem High School in 2024. She is the daughter of Jared and Cindy Roberts of Salem.

Brady Wells, coach for Hanover’s women’s cross country, was recognized as Coach of the Year. He formerly served as a teacher and coach at Salem High School.

Karissa Hardy gets a bucket in the first half.

By Josh Lewis, Writer

The Lady Lions basketball team opened the season up on Thursday night the way every team wants to, with a win. It wasn’t pretty, but that didn’t matter to the end result as Salem pulled away down the stretch in a back and forth game over Mitchell 34-30.

Wade Tomlinson is back at the helm as the head coach of the Salem girls basketball team. He said they were very excited to get the win to start the season. “We are all excited. The girls have worked really really hard. Considering the situation we are in, we are missing 13 kids from last year. We only have 1 letter returner. We are starting kids that didn’t even play last year. We knew there would be some rough spots, but wow they played hard. They tried to do everything we asked them to, really we just don’t have enough reps in. But they just played hard.Karissa really stepped up. She didn’t play last year. She’s really stepped up for us and was our leading scorer. She did some good things.”

Both teams struggled with turnovers throughout the game, but the Lady Lions took a 5-3 lead thanks to a bucket from Alexis Maudlin. Mitchell was able to get a lead late in the quarter though with a triple and another basket to make it a 12-7 lead.

Payslea Chastain buried a corner three to get Salem going at the start of the second quarter. Karissa Hardy got a score in the post to knot the game up at 12. Abby Hardy got a basket in the paint and then Karissa got another score to help Salem start building a lead 15-12 late in the half.

To open the second half the Bluejackets hit back to back triples to take a 20-15 advantage. Karissa got a layup to stop the short run but both teams struggled offensively until the fourth quarter.

Mitchell hit two from the stripe to make it a 25-21 edge with 5:47 left in the game, but then Salem went on their run. Maudlin hit a jumper, and then Abby Hardy added one from the stripe and another bucket to tie the game at 26 with 3:37 left in the game. The Bluejackets hit a few more free throws on separate trips to make it 29-26.

Harley Walters hit a jumper and Maudlin hit a layup to reclaim the lead. On the next trip Maudlin found Abby in the paint with 1:35 left to play. Then Maudlin put the finishing touches on the game with another basket with 1:01 to go and the Lady Lions celebrated their season opening win.

Tomlinson said the team just kept playing hard down the stretch and that helped them take the lead. “They just kept playing hard. One of the things that helped us was Alexis didn’t play a ton because of foul trouble, but she finally got to play some in the fourth quarter. That helped our surge there. Wilson and Abby Hardy dominated the boards. We had 51 rebounds as a team which is amazing. Wilson had six offensive rebounds and that was really big for us. We played some kids that are deep in our bench and they did a great job.”

Salem took one on the chin on Saturday when they traveled to Seymour and came home with a 58-8 loss. Salem will travel to Crawford County on Tuesday.

MHS scoring: Modglin 2, L. Thompson 11, R. Thompson 6, Fountain 2, Lamm 1, Kohlhaas 8

SHS scoring: Chastain 3, A. Hardy 7, Maudlin 9, K. Hardy 10, Walters 2, Wilson 3

Threes: L. Thompson, R. Thompson, Kohlaas 2, Chastain

SHS Lady basketball 2 Payslip Chastain drives to the hoop.