New Madison, OH, December 22, 2007
By Doug Frazier


The Lady Patriots returned to the Battleground looking to rebound from a stinging defeat at Twin Valley South in their last outing. One would expect this would be a good game for the Pat’s as they won the first encounter by thirty points and the Lady Trailblazers came in at 2-8 on the season.

Tri-Village utilized the full court press from the onset at every opportunity forcing Blazer turnovers. The Pat’s spread the ball around with Shawnda Stamps and Jordyn Fisherback collecting four points apiece and Tina Allison adding two more in the opening minutes of play. National Trail could only muster a single free throw to make it 10-1 Tri-Village at the end of one quarter of play.

The Patriots pressure continued to cause trouble for the Lady Trailblazers in the second quarter. Halfway through the period Trail finally found a way to break the press and got a shot off to make the score 16-3 Pat’s.

However, Tri-Village sputtered offensively and by not scoring the Patriots weren’t able to press. Trail then gained new confidence on every possession and was able to score a few more times and went to the locker room trailing just 18-7.

When the two teams returned to the floor for the second half the Lady Pat’s couldn’t regain the momentum they had in the first half. They missed their first four shots, all of them in the paint, as well as two free throws.

TV finally moved the scoreboard forward three minutes into the quarter when Shawnda Stamps made a nice lob to Jordyn Fisherback who drew the foul and converted both free throws to make it 20-9 TV. On the next possession Kaila Burns dumped it back inside to Fisherback with the same results as Jordyn converts both tosses and TV went up 22-9.

The Blazers scored when Lori Deaton was left all alone in the paint and to make it 22-11… but Amelia Frazier got the Patriots rolling again with a steal in the half-court and was fouled taking it to the hole. She made one of two free throws. Then it was Hillary Frech’s turn to toss one inside to Fisherback and for the third time in the period she dropped in the free throws making it 25-13 Patriots. Trail got a charity toss of their own to close out the quarter trailing by the score of 25-14.

Although the Patriots struggled a bit in the second half they never were really challenged and while getting scoring from Allison, Burns, and Frazier. The Lady Trailblazers hit a few free throws and a nice three by Stacy Davis to narrow the final margin but it wasn’t enough as Tri-Village won the second match-up between the two teams 33-21 and this one counted in the conference standings.

After getting off to a 10-1 start in this game, Tri-Village could only muster a 23-19 advantage over the remaining three quarters. TV Coach, Brad Gray summed up the game like this. “We did not shoot well this game. We need to step it up more, it’s there game day, it’s the rest of the time we need the effort. We’re relaxing and not doing things like boxing out and playing strong defense that shows in our play.”

The win brings the Lady Pat’s to 7-4 overall and 4-2 in the Cross County Conference. Tri-Village will return to the Battleground for a meeting with the Arcanum Lady Trojans on Thursday December 27th.

Scoring by Quarters:

Tri-Village……10….08….07….08 – 33
National Trail…01…06….07….07 – 21

Tri-Village (7-4, 4-2)
Tina Allison 11
Kaila Burns 05
Jordyn Fisherback 10
Amelia Frazier 05
Shawnda Stamps 05
Totals 33

National Trail (2-9, 1-5)
Stacy Davis 07
Lori Deaton 05
Courtney Flory 02
Alisa Joyce 02
Kayla Lee 03
Sarah Little 02

Rebounds – TV 28 (Allison 10, Fisherback 9) NT 26 (Little 6, Flory 6)
Three Pointers – TV 1 (Burns) NT 1 (Davis)