NNew Madison, Ohio – December 27, 2007

By George Starks
Sports Writer
gstarks@dailyadvocate.com

Kaila Burns may not have been hot the whole game but she got that way when Tri-Village needed it most.

On a night when Arcanum would stay close all game long, the Patriot sophomore decided she had seen enough of the Trojans hanging around.
Burns nailed three treys in the fourth quarter, four in the second half, to help power the Patriots past Arcanum 50-37 in Cross County Conference action Thursday.

“She (Burns) is really coming on shooting the basketball,” said Patriots coach Brad Gray. “In the first half she didn’t hit anything but we told her in the locker room at half-time that when you’re missing like that, you will hit three or four in a row. We have confidence in her and I think she is starting to get confidence in herself that she didn’t have at the beginning of the year. When we get that kind of shooting out of her and the kind of play we got on the inside, we are a tough team to stop.”

Burns started to come alive when she hit her first triple of the quarter at the 7:01 mark of the game, giving the Patriots a little breathing room, with a 34-28 advantage.

With Tri-Village leading 39-33 and just over four minutes remaining, Burns nailed back to back three’s and a six point lead ballooned to a commanding 45-33 advantage with 2:18 showing on the game clock.

Underneath, Gray could not have asked for more as senior Tina Allison netted 10 points while yanking down 14 boards. Her counterpart, Jordyn Fisherback dropped in ten herself and pulled in 12 boards of her own. Combined, the two recorded 26 rebounds while Arcanum, as a whole would total just 23 rebounds on the night.

In addition, Amelia Frazier would net a dozen points in the winning effort.
“We had four players in double figures tonight,” Gray admitted. “When we are able to do that, we are good enough defensively that teams will have a hard time playing with us. I think this was the best game Tina has played all year and Amelia did a heck of a job. Jordyn has been solid all season long. This is ten games in a row she scored double figures. She’s consistent and has been solid the whole season.”

The defense that Gray noted came from the play of Hillary Frech. “She did an outstanding job on Cates (Angie),” said Gray. “She only scored two points but the job she did on defense was excellent. She made smart decisions with the ball and played her tail off on defense.”

It was a night when the Trojans would have more than their share of chances. Missed opportunities and bad free throw shooting would be the difference for Arcanum and coach Steve Christ.

“We couldn’t get anything going. Offense was zero and shooting five of 13 from the line will not win games. We missed way too many bunnies tonight and that killed us,” said Christ. “The first half they beat us up and down the court but we came back in the second half, played some decent defense but we couldn’t get the game we needed to stay in the hunt in the conference. I think this game really took us out of the chase.”

On offense, it was Cates that led the way for Arcanum with 15 while Devon Meyer added 11.

Score By Quarters:

Tri-Village 15 06 10 19 – 50
Arcanum 12 02 12 11 – 37

Individual Scoring
Tri-Village
Allison 10
Bundy 04
Burns 12
Fisherback 10
Frazier 12
Frech 02
Totals 50

Arcanum
Cates 15
Meyer 11
O'Dell 02
Schelhaus 07
Wayman 02
Totals 37