Pitsburg, Ohio – January 23, 2010

Traditionally the Tri-Village Patriots haven’t fared well when playing at the Hangar against the Franklin Monroe Jets. Lately, the play of the Patriots has steadily improved, inversely the Jets have struggled and the timing was good for Tri-Village who earned a 62-41 victory against the home team.

In the opening quarter Franklin Monroe went up 17-12 as Brandy Fourman was able to score inside against the T-V man-to-man defense scoring seven points. Tiffany Kossler also did some damage scoring a trey and fielder for five points.

After FM held a 12-6 lead Kayla Linkous went to work inside as she scored six of her eight points in the quarter to keep them close trailing 17-12.

The Patriots then put the clamps on the Jets in the second period holding them to just six points while scoring 15 to take a 27-23-halftime lead.

“After starting out in a man-to-man defense we noticed some match-up problems and switched to our 2/3 zone which caused them some problems initially,” said Head Coach Brad Gray. “We then were able to make a substitution that allowed us to get the match-up we wanted, switched back to man and it seemed to keep them off balance.”

While the Jets struggled, T-V took advantage as the substitution of Teha Richards not only helps defensively… but also helped the Patriots pick apart the extended zone of Franklin Monroe.

”She (Teha) is very athletic and is able to get into the middle of the zone where she can either knock down the 15’ shot, drive to the basket or dish and she was effective doing that,” said Gray.

In fact Teha scored 6 points including a 15’ baseline jumper to give T-V the lead 18-17 at 6:24 and the Patriots would never trail in the game again.

In the third quarter Tri-Village continued to attack and penetrate the zone of FM this time is was Shaye Thomas as she scored the first five points. After a Kaila Burns trey, T-V held a 35-23 lead with 4:22 to play.

Due to the penetration and outside shooting of the Patriots, FM was forced to guard KJ Linkous one on one and they took advantage as she scored the next eight points as T-V extended their lead 45-27 to end the third frame.

In the opening minutes of the final stanza it was all KJ as she tallied 11 more points until leaving the game at the 4:28 mark with T-V holding a 58-29 lead.

With the game pretty much in-hand and both teams subbing in Tri-Village went on to record their 9th victory overall and more importantly their 6th conference win against 2 losses.

For the game Kayla Linkous led all scorers with 33 points, Shaye Thomas added 12 for the winning team. Franklin Monroe never had a double-digit scorer but was led by Brandy Fourman with 9 points.

After asking coach Gray if he was surprised by the margin of victory he said, “surprised yes, winning the game, no.” “I know we have struggled playing here… but I knew this team was capable of winning and they are starting to play the way we knew they could.”

“They are playing defense the way we are accustomed to playing and it gave them (FM) problems.” “The last time Sierra Bruner scored 18 and Monica Heckman 12 and our defense held them to single digits.”

“We just need to continue to build off this win as we travel to Greenville on Tuesday and Mississinawa on Thursday,” concluded Gray.


Score by quarters:
Tri-Village………..12…15…18…17 - 62
Franklin Monroe….17…06…04…14 - 41

Individual Scoring
Tri-Village
Hillarie Frech 0-1-2/2 - 4
Kaila Burns 1-0-2/3 - 5
Tea Richards 0-4-0/0 - 8
Shaye Thomas 0-4-4/6 - 12
Kayla Linkous 0-12-9/9 - 33
Totals 1-21-17/20 - 62

Franklin Monroe
Tiffany Kossler 1-2-0/0 - 7
Sierra Bruner 0-1-2/2 - 4
Bowling 0-0-4/6 - 4
Brandy Fourman 0-4-1/3 - 9
Kenworthy 0-1-0/0 - 2
Ashley Pfahl 0-3-1/2 - 7
Monica Heckman 0-2-2/2 - 6
Ashworth 0-0-2/2 - 2
Totals 1-13-12/17 - 41

Three Pointers:
Tri-Village 1 (Burns 1)
Franklin Monroe 1 (Kossler 1)