December 4, 2008
Ansonia, Ohio

The Lady Patriots were coming off a high in winning their own Bill Burkett Tournament Championship against Ansonia. But Ansonia was waiting and ready to extract revenge and the opportunity came early rather than later in the year as TV took on the Tigers to open league play.

The game started much like it did the first time around with Tri-Village pounding the ball into Kayla Linkous for two scores inside. It didn’t take long for the Tigers to play more physical banging KJ when they could and doubling up on her. This gave the Patriots an opportunity with good ball movement to get some looks outside and Kaila Burns responded with 2 treys. All the more the Tigers kept the game close… but a Kylie Thomas fielder gave the Pats a 13-11 lead after one period of play.

Thomas would then score 4 more points to start the 2nd period for the Patriots who would shortly find themselves in trouble when Kayla Linkous picked up her second foul. Meanwhile the Tigers were able to wrestle away the lead led by Ashlyn Hemmelgarn with 6 points in the frame.

The Patriots playing without their inside game scrapped and clawed to stay close and found a spark in junior Adriana Finkbine. Finkbine would score 7 of the Patriots last 10 points the other 3 points off a trey by Chelsey Royer and Tri-Village regained the lead at halftime by the score of 30-26.

“I was really pleased with our team play when KJ picked up her second foul we stayed patient and actually expanded our lead,” said coach Brad Gray.

However, in the third quarter some of the new found confidence that some of the younger players found may have actually been fools gold. The Patriots started to play at a faster pace causing turnovers and quick shots which played right into the Tigers style of play. In just a matter of minutes the Tigers would score 9 unanswered points taking a 40-34 lead with 3:30 to play.

After a timeout and settling down a little Tri-Village went back to their game plan and found success with KJ scoring 6 straight points to tie the game at 40 each with 1:31 to play. The Tigers closed out the period strong with a 3 by McEldowney and a deuce by Schmidt to put the lead up to 5 points 45-40.

In the final period with the Tigers playing very aggressive in taking away any inside passing lanes and touches by Linkous, it would be junior Hillarie Frech who would step forward. Frech was able to take the ball to the basket dropping in 8 points to keep the Patriots close.

Trailing 53 – 50 with just 11 seconds to play the Tigers would put Kylie Thomas on the free throw line for one and bonus. Thomas netted both to pull the Pats to within one 53-52.

Ansonia netted one throw on their next possession to lead 54-52 with 9 seconds to play. Tri-Village then pushed the ball up the floor with Kayla Linkous getting knotted up on the block… she kicked the ball out to Finkbine who put up a three ball with one second left for the win but the ball fell short and Ansonia won a huge early season league battle 54-52.

After the game Coach Gray commented, “I’m very disappointed in the loss as I know we didn’t play our best game. We got away from our style of play in the third period and it cost us the game. We are a young team and if anything this should be a good lesson. Hopefully our team will learn that we need to play our game and to our strengths. We can’t get excited and start playing up-tempo, we don’t handle the ball all that well and we can’t go almost a whole quarter without one of our best players even touching the ball,” concluded Gray.

The Lady Patriots will be back in action on Saturday in boys and girl’s double-header verses National Trail at Tri-Village. Girls JV game will start at 3:00pm

In the JV contest the girls won a close game 40-39 and were led byAlexa Foreman with 22 points to run their record to 2-1 on the year.

Scoring by Quarters:
Tri-Village 13 17 10 12 – 52
Ansonia…..11 15 20 09 – 54

Tri-Village: (2-1, 0-1)
Hillarie Frech – 0 – 5 – 0/0 – 10
Adrianna Finkbine – 0 – 2 – 3/4 – 7
Chelsey Royer – 1 – 0 – 0/0 – 3
Kaila Burns – 3 – 0 – 0/0 – 9
Kylie Thomas – 0 – 2 – 5/6 – 9
Bre Abney – 0 – 0 1/2 – 1
Kaila Linkous – 0 – 5 – 3/5 – 13
Totals – 4 – 14 – 12/17 – 52

Ansonia: (2-1, 1-0)
Staci Schmidt – 0 – 1 – 1/3 – 3
Ashlyn Hemmelgarn – 0 – 5 – 3/5 – 13
Sara Amspaugh – 0 – 0 – 0/1 – 0
Ashley McEldowney – 1 – 7 – 0/0 – 17
Mestemaker – 0 – 2 – 0/0 – 4
Emily Berger – 0 – 2 – 3/3 – 6
Jenifer Gasper – 0 – 2 – 0/0 – 4
Totals – 1 – 22 – 7/12 - 54