11/29/08
New Madison, Ohio

If you like high school basketball you would have loved the Lady Patriots/Bill Burkett Tournament this year. It was full of surprises, lots of scoring and close games.

Going into the tournament Arcanum was favored to win it all with an experienced senior laden team. Tri-Village on the other hand was expected to finish last coming in with the least experienced team with only one returning starter.

Surprise number one… Tri-Village upset Arcanum on the opening night with a 30-point outburst in the final quarter erasing an 18-point deficit to advance to the championship game. Sealing the victory was Hillarie Frech sinking two free throws with 8 seconds left to play for the 66-64 win. Frech would score 15 and Kaila Burns 14 points on the night.

Surprise number two… the player to lead the way was freshman Kayla (KJ) Linkous playing in her first ever varsity game scoring 25 points while pulling down 14 rebounds.

The Lady Patriots then squared off against the Ansonia Tigers (another highly touted team with lots of experience) for the championship game… with many still wondering if Tri-Village was for real.

Surprise number three… they are for real the Patriots would score the first basket in the game and never trailed in the contest on their way to a 54-49 win to claim the school’s 10th Tourney Title.

Surprise number four… the Tournament MVP was freshman Kayla Linkous. KJ would set a single game tournament scoring record of 32 points, surpassing (2) 30-point games by Katrina Spitler set back in 2002. Spitler still holds the overall tournament scoring record of 60 points but the 57 points amassed by KJ puts her in the second spot all time.

Named to the all tournament team from Tri-Village were Kayla Linkous, Hillarie Frech, Kaila Burns, for runner-up Ansonia it was Staci Schmidt, Ashlyn Hemmelgarn and for Arcanum Emily Schellhaas.

In the opening quarter of the championship game Tri-Village would go up 13-7 with KJ dropping in 11 of the Pats points. KJ would then duplicate that effort in the second quarter with another 11 points and Tri-Village led at the half 30-22.

In the second half Ansonia became more aggressive defensively while doubling down on Linkous in the post. It slowed down the interior game as Linkous scored 6 in the quarter… but it then opened up a few outside shot opportunities. Kaila Burns would drop in a three along with Hillarie Frech dropping in a 15 footer and the Patriots maintained their 8-point lead 41-33 going into the final stanza.

A scrappy Tigers team would scratch and claw their way back into the contest refusing to give up. They would send the Pats to the free throw line 8 times… the strategy was effective in slowing down KJ who would score just 2 points in the period both on free throw tosses. With just a little over one minute to play in the game Ansonia would get a bucket from Sarah Amspaugh to cut the margin to 2 points the closest they had been since the opening of the game 49-47. However. Tri-Village sealed the game by making just enough free throws to win it 54-49.

Surprise number five… “Well I honestly didn’t expect this, said Coach Brad Gray after the victory. We felt like we weren’t getting any respect coming into the tournament. We heard a lot about Arcanum and Ansonia both good basketball teams with experience. I told the girls’ let’s go out and prove we can play. Now maybe people will be talking about Tri-Village. I can tell you this Kayla Linkous won’t be a surprise anymore… that freshman secret lasted about an hour. There is no doubt teams will be aware of her and it will get tougher. I like to think if teams focus on her it will give us the opportunity to score from the outside and we have some capable scorers from the perimeter if that happens.”

Tri-Village won’t have much time to relish in the victory as they travel to Ansonia on Thursday 12/4/08 for a 5:30 start time. They will take on a revengeful minded Tigers team in their first conference game of the year.

Scoring by Quarters:
Tri-Village 13 17 13 11 – 54
Ansonia…..07 15 11 16 – 49

Tri-Village: (2-0, 0-0)
Hillarie Frech – 0-1-3/6 – 5
Adriana Finkbine – 0-1-3/4 – 5
Chelsey Royer – 1-0-2/4 – 5
Kaila Burns – 1-0-4/4 – 7
Bre Abney – 0-0-0/2- 0
Kayla Linkous – 0-12-8/11 – 32
Totals – 2-14-21/30 – 54

Ansonia: (1-1, 0-0)
Staci Schmidt – 5-0-0/0 – 15
Ashlyn Hemmelgarn – 0-2-2/4 – 6
Gina Billenstein – 1-2-0/0 – 7
Sara Amspaugh – 1-1-1/2 – 6
Ashley McEldowney – 0-1-2/4 – 6
Sara Mayo – 0-2-2/4 – 6
Emily Berger – 0-2-0/0 – 6
Jenifer Gasper – 0-0-0/1 – 0
Totals – 7-10-8/15 – 49