New Madison, Ohio – February 3, 2010

It was a rough and tumble night at the Battleground in a low scoring game, one in which the Lady Patriots came out on top with a 38-28 win over Tri-County North.

“I’m proud of our kids, tonight they battled through a very physical second half, kept their composure and continued to play basketball to earn a big conference win,” said coach Brad Gray.

In the early going both teams struggled to get on track offensively as 4 minutes ticked off the clock before Shaye Thomas was able to score on a baseline jumper. Tri-Village would go on to gain a 13-7 first quarter lead.

In the second period Tri-Village went up 17-7 on a Hillary Frech jumper at 5:50 but Tri-County North answered with 6 straight points to cut the lead to 17-13 with 2:40 to play. After a Teha Richards fielder the Panthers Kaye Mullins hit a trey to end the scoring cutting the lead to 19-16 at the half.

“We were having a difficult time scoring against Tri-Village’s man-to-man defense… but when they dropped into the 2-3 zone we took advantage to get back in the game,” said Tri-County North Head Coach Dan Music.

In the third period the Patriots came back out in their man-to-man pressure with even more intensity than before which resulted in just three points for North in the period. Hillary Frech led T-V in the period with five of the Patriots nine points to go up 28-19.

In the final stanza Tri-Village continued to ball hawk the Panthers with their defense. Meanwhile the Patriots controlled the tempo offensively as well showing great patience working the ball looking for good percentage shots.

The strategy paid off as North was unable to close the gap and Tri-Village went on to gain a 38-28 win.

“It was a funny game,” said coach Music we were called for touch fouls in the first half and in the second half we couldn’t get a foul called on us which allowed the game to become very physical. It sort of worked against us especially down the stretch when we needed to try and get the ball back.”

“We came out in the second half and really got after it on defense,” said coach Gray. “We dropped into a zone at the end of the first half because we were a little tired and they got some scores off it. We kept our man-to-man pressure on the entire second half and it really paid off.”

Tri-Village was led in scoring by Kayla Linkous with a quite 13 points. “They played a diamond and two defense trying to take away Linkous and began to extended as the game went on and we just weren’t able to find Kayla,” said Gray. “We need to do a better job of trying to find her in those situations,” concluded Gray.

The win raises the Patriots record to 12-5 overall and 8-2 in the conference. Tri-Village is back in action tomorrow night traveling to Newton to take on the Indians.

Score by quarters:
Tri-Village………...13…06…09…10 - 38
Tri-County North….07…09…03…09 - 28

Individual Scoring
Tri-Village
Hillarie Frech 1-3-0/0 - 9
Kaila Burns 1-0-0/2 - 3
Shaye Thomas 0-4-1/3 - 9
Kayla Linkous 0-3-7/8 - 13
Jordyn Hill 0-1-0/1 - 2
Teha Richards 0-1-0/2 - 2
Totals 2-12-8/16 - 38

Tri-County North
Bierly 1-1-2/2 - 7
Mullins 1-3-1/3 - 10
Schlater 0-1-0/0 - 2
K. Schriever 0-1-0/0 - 2
C. Schriever 0-1-0/0 - 2
Johnson 0-1-1/2 - 3
Ullery 0-1-0/0 - 2
Totals 2-9-4/7 - 28

Three Pointers:
Tri-Village 2 (Burns 1, Frech 1)
TC North 2 (Bierly 1, Mullins 1)