New Madison – December 3, 2004
Tri-Village’s first game at home last week was spoiled by National Trail. Playing in their second game of the season at Arcanum tonight, the team gained their first victory and… notched career victory number one for Coach Sagester with the hope of many more to come.

From the outset it was apparent it was going to be a defensive battle. With just a little more than two minutes and thirty seconds already off the clock neither team had scored. Josh Fisherback would get the visiting team on the board first with two consecutive treys before Arcanum would score at 4:34. Fisherback again nailed a three followed by a Jay stick-back ending the quarter up 11-2.

Jay opened the second period with two more in the paint. Then it was Sam Lindamood’s turn to step it up as he scored three straight field goals, two off fast breaks and one strong drive to the hole. The Patriots were up now 19-7. But Justin Rench would score 5 points to pull the Trojans closer, but again it was another long bomb by Fisherback that would put TV up 24-12 to end the first half.

It felt like déjà vu all over again as the Patriots led by a similar score at halftime against National Trail last week. Would the team be able to come out and put together a strong defensive second half to match the first, or would they run out of steam again.

The third period looked much like the previous two quarters with a Jay bucket inside, followed by Cameron Quinn’s 15 footer in the lane and another Fisherback trey (5th of the night) and at 5:18 TV was up 31-14. For the remainder of the third period neither team was able to establish any big runs and the Patriots were up 39-23 at the end of three.

Going into the final stanza you knew it was going to be a long quarter. At 6:41 two Fisherback free throws gave Tri-Village their largest lead of the night at twenty 43-23. That’s when Arcanum turned up the juice, it was an all out assault with full court defensive pressure, jumping on the floor for every loose ball and a never say die attitude.

The strategy was go for steals, contest everything and if you foul then they will have to beat us at the line and that is exactly what the Trojans did. In just under a minute, once again led by five points by Rench, Arcanum was able to pull to within 43-31 with six minutes and fourteen seconds to play. For the remainder of the game on every TV possession the Trojans were sending a Patriot to the free throw line. Meanwhile TV was struggling at the line only making 15 of 28 free throws in the final quarter. But on this night flanked by strong defense it was good enough giving the Patriots their first win 56-47.

Tri-Village evens their record at 1-1 overall 1-0 in the conference and will be back in action tomorrow night in a non-league game at Fort Recovery.

In Junior Varsity action the Patriots fell to Arcanum 47-26. Paced again by Mark Wheeler’s nine points and Logan Brubaker with eight points.

Box Score
Tri-Village Patriots
# 4 – Pipenger – 0
# 5 – Fisherback – 17
#15 – Foreman – 4
#32 – Snyder – 7
#33 – Quinn – 5
#35 – Lindamood – 13
#50 – Jay - 10
Totals - 56

Arcanum Trojans
#10 – Holsapple – 2
#14 – Cates – 3
#20 – Law –2
#22 – Printz – 11
#24 – Eilerman – 2
#34 – Rench – 18
#40 – Greve – 2
#42 – Moore – 5
#44 – Schwieterman – 2
Totals - 47 

Score by quarters:
Tri-Village – 11 – 24 – 39 – 56
Arcanum – 2 – 12 – 23 – 47