Dec. 10, 2009 - Brandt, Ohio

Tri-Village traveled to Bethel looking to get back into the win column. After starting the season off with a narrow loss to a good FM Jet team by 2 points Tri-Village won back-to-back games against Ansonia. They then fell on hard times with two straight losses first to National Trial by 1 point and then a 5 point loss to Houston who was a district qualifying team last year.

Coach Brad Gray was pleased with the progress his team made at Houston even in the loss and hoped it would carry over into the game tonight at Bethel.

Tri-Village jumped out to a 9-0 lead thanks to three straight treys by Kaila Burns to start the game. Bethel regrouped and went on an 8-0 run before Kayla Linkous was able to stop the run with a basket inside. Bethel was able to score at the buzzer to end the 1st quarter trailing 11-10.

In the second period both teams traded baskets for the first few minute. Tri-Village was able to finally open up a 7 point half lead 23-16. They found success through penetration by Shaye Thomas in the paint for 6 points… while Linkous also scored 6 as well in the paint.

It was Kaila Burns who would get the Patriots going to start the third quarter, this time she put the ball on the deck and hit a pull up jumper from the elbow. The Patriots went up by 10 on another Thomas drive 27-17 with 5:50 to play. Bethel didn’t fold and mounted a charge led by Ellerbrock with 4 of their 7 points to close the gap to 27-24 with 3:02 to play. Tri-Village ended the quarter leading 32-28.

In the final stanza the Patriots handled the full court pressure and all out assault by an aggressive Bee’s squad. In doing so they would find themselves at the free throw line…and the shooting down the stretch by Shaye Thomas and Kayla Linkous was enough to keep Bethel from gaining any ground. The Patriots finished the game strong on their way to a 49-39 win.

Afterwards a small smile appeared on Coach Brad Gray’s face and maybe it was a smile of relief. “It feels good to get this win,” said Coach Gray. “We have struggled a bit here of late and we are all disappointed with our play. I think this win against a good Bethel team will give us a kick-start. We have struggled against the zone and it has taken us a few games to figure out what we need to do to attack it. I challenged our guards, because they have to be willing to dribble drive against the zone and not just stand in one spot. I feel like they are starting to do that and it will pay dividends down the road. A good example of that was Burns hitting those early threes and then when they came out at her she used the dribble penetration pulled up and hit the jumper. That is going to make us a better team. I thought we did a good job tonight attacking the zone. But we have things to work on and now that we have a little break between games we’ll be able to work on some of those things.

Shaye Thomas led the PATS in scoring tonight with 18 points, Kayla Linkous added 15 and Kaila Burns chipped in 11 in the league win. Tri-Village record is now 3-3 overall and 2-1 in the conference.

Score by quarters:

Tri-Village...11…12…09…17 – 49
Bethel…..….10…..6…12…11 – 39

Tri-Village
Burns – 3-1-0/0 – 11
Bre Abney – 0-1-0/0 – 2
Thomas – 0-5-8/10 – 18
Hill – 0-1-1/3 – 3
Linkous – 0-6-3/7 – 15
Totals – 3-14-12/20 – 49

Bethel
Cornett – 0-1-3/3 –5
Ellerbrock – 1-2-5/7 – 12
Banks – 1-5-1/3 – 14
Cipes – 0-0-2/7 – 2
Nelson – 0-1-0/0 – 2
Totals – 2-11-11/20 – 39

Three Pointers:
Tri-Village: 3 (Burns – 3)
Bethel: 2 (Ellerbrock – 1, Banks – 1)