Ninth seeded Salmen finishes with a 24-7 record. No. 9 Istrouma travels to top seeded Peabody Magnet for the quarterfinals. Peabody has been to the quarterfinals the last two years, but Salmen beat them both times. Peabody is coming off a 57-28 victory over McDonogh 35.
The game was tied at 8-8 through one period. The Spartans then went on an 11-3 run to make it 19-11. Istrouma trimmed it to 19-15 by halftime.
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Istrouma continued the run in the second half. By the time it was over, the Indians had run off 15-straight points and led 26-19.
Salmen struggled offensively throughout.
“We didn’t have our ‘A’ game,” Salmen coach Jay Carlin said. “We got open looks and we got inside. Overall, we were not at our best on the offensive end. We felt like if we could hold them in the low 50s, we’d be OK. The kids played hard. It just wasn’t our night.”
Salmen hit on just 4-of-28 (14.2 percent) from behind the arc and they were 7-of-17 (41.1 percent) from the free-throw line. The Indians connected on 18-of-23 (78.2 percent) from the charity stripe.
Despite the struggles, Salmen still cut the deficit to 48-45 with five-seconds left and Istrouma was at the line. The Indians split the free throws and scored the final points after a turnover.
Khari Price led the Spartans with 17 points. T.J. Price finished with 11, Robinson posted nine and Thomas Jones tallied seven.
This year’s Spartans’ squad was a young one. Salmen had just four seniors in Jones, Clay Cansler, Nick Lowe and Kelroy Price.
Carlin said he club continued to improve.
“We had a lot of individuals whose game continued to grow,” Carlin said. “They were very very competitive. We thought we could win every time we stepped on the court. We had a great year. We had a young team. The future looks bright. It was a disappointing ending, but we’ll get over this and we’ll be back.”
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