August 2004 - New Madison

A Season In Review

The 2003-04 season is now in the record books and looking back there were highs and lows. The team finished above 500 and a winning season. Many teams would be content with a 12-10 record but Tri-Village has grown accustomed to winning. Over the last 5 years Coach Falknor's teams have averaged over 16 wins a year, three 1st and two 3rd places finishes in the conference. This year's team finished 7-4, 4th in the conference.

The program was dealt a major blow about the time fall practices were to begin. Coach Falknor diagnosed with an illness was trying to deal with treatments and his own personal struggle to becoming healthy. He stayed involved with the program relying on his assistant coaches Bill Moore and Matt Renfro to keep things rolling when he was unable to participate. Coach Falknor was resilient regaining strength as the season progressed and renewing his passion for the game of basketball. One could argue there was a correlation to the season based on those circumstances.

The team struggled early on posting a 4-6 record the first half of the season. They gained momentum in the second half of the year riding a 6 game winning streak into the sectionals. The squad eventually had their season ended by a very tough Southeastern team. Reviewing the schedule it's worthy noting one loss came at the hands of Division III State Champion St. Henry and two losses to State Runner-up Versailles.

In conference action Ansonia would surprise many by going undefeated while Covington and National Trail challenged for the title, but finished 2nd and 3rd respectively. Tri-Village finished 4th winning the battle of the middle tier teams. A season opening 1 point loss to Arcanum was disappointing but redemption was found when the two teams met a few weeks later in the Jet Holiday Tournament with a resounding 74-48 Patriot victory.

Departing seniors are Kyler Burns, Derek Ary, Josh Bailey and Nic Brant. Kyler Burns averaged 11.36 points a game and was a legitimate 3 point threat throughout his career (83) seventh all time and (34 ) in 2003-04. Derek Ary scored 5.14 points per game while dishing out 70 assists. Josh Bailey dropped in 3.36 points and provided athleticism on the floor. Nic Brant a fan favorite played hard when the opporutunity presented itself.

The team was led in scoring and rebounding by junior Corey Jay at 13.45 points a game while pulling down 201 total rebounds. Other individual's scoring for the season were junior's Cameron Quinn 5.56, Josh Fisherback 5.16, Ryan Snyder 2.0, and Josh Pipenger .58. Sophomore's contributing were Sam Lindamood 6.57 and Daniel Foreman at 1.29 points a game.

The 2003-04 season also marks the departure of Coach Lee Falknor after 19 years as a Head Coach at Tri-Village. He leaves with the most wins in School history of any coach both boys and girls with 248. Coach Falknor has set the standard of how a coach will measured in terms of putting together a winning program.