On Tuesday, Oct. 24, the Seward County Community College men’s and women’s basketball teams hosted a preview night in the Greenhouse. The preview night gave fans a chance to meet the new athletes and had many fun activities for the Saints and their fans to enjoy. The event kicked off at 5:30 p.m., with the Saints and Lady Saints basketball players giving out autographs.

At 6:00 p.m., The preview night had officially begun. To start the event, musical chairs with a twist was played. Chairs were placed in the middle of the court to walk around. Once the music stopped, players had to run, make a layup, run back to the chairs and sit down. After the layup contest, the men and ladies went up against each other in a three-point contest.

At first, both teams tied in three-pointers. To break the tie, coaches went up against each other and also had to shoot threes. The Lady Saints basketball team ended up with the win and earned bragging rights for the 2017-18 three-point contest.

Then, the hype of the night finally started. Fans and players got out their phones and prepared for the highlight of the night: Three Saints competed in the dunk contest: Jared Bennett, Tre Flowers and Jordan Mitchell. Each player had one minute to do as many dunks possible.

At the score table, there were 4 judges were keeping score of who had the best dunks. Depending on the score, players would be eliminated until it was just two competing. At the end, the dunk contest championship title was given to freshman, Jared Bennett.

When asked how it felt to be the winner of the dunk contest, Bennett was very excited. 

“They were sleeping on me, no one thought i was going to win but i came through,” Bennett said.

After the dunk contest, the 2017-18 Saints cheer squad performed for the first time this year. Out of the 26 cheerleaders and yell-leaders, 24 performed during preview night.

“Getting ready for tonight was nerve wracking because we wanted to hit everything and today, I think we performed better than we anticipated. We hit everything on time and no stunts fell,” Freshman cheerleader, Lesly Mendoza, said about their performance.

After the performance by the Saints cheer squad, each player from both the women’s and men’s basketball teams were announced. When the players were done being announced, a dance-off between the two teams took place.

Each team had the chance to dance for the Saints fans and at the end, the fans would decide the winner of the dance off. The Lady Saints danced first; they lined up, did a small dance together and then formed a circle where players would take turn dancing.

Next were the Saints. The men immediately formed a circle and began dancing. Many players did entertaining dance moves to get the fans hyped up, but it was one move that gave the won over the saints. Freshman, Tre Flowers, did a dance move and then ended it with two back-flips and a round-off. Fans were impressed and cheered loudly, giving the Saints the dance-off win.

To finish off the night, the two teams scrimmaged. Each scrimmage was 10 minutes long and was played by two teams of either Saints or Lady Saints. The Lady saints scrimmaged first. Teams were split up into black and white.

For most of the game, it was close; every time one team would make a basket, the other would hustle down the court and do the same. It wasn’t until the last couple seconds that a winner was determined. The black team won by a buzzer beater made by freshman forward, Carla Covane.

For the Saints scrimmage, the green team took the win. Both teams struggled at first to put up points, but once the green team got rolling, they didn’t stop. White never really had a chance to catch up due to missed baskets and bad passes.

After both scrimmages, players from each team entered the stands gave thanks to their the fans for coming out to the 2017-18  preview night.

The Saints start their season on Wednesday, Nov. 1 in the Greenhouse against Clarendon College. The Lady Saints will kick off their season on Saturday,  Nov.4 in the Greenhouse against Hesston College.