Valley Sets Date With Destiny
AKRON — It was just another day at the office for the Tippecanoe Valley girls basketball team. The Lady Vikings whooped up on West Noble 51-28 in the semi-finals of the IHSAA Class 3A Sectional Tournament.
“I want to say now that it was an advantage for us to have played Tuesday night,” began Valley head coach Chris Kindig. “We were able to get all of our bugs and jitters out of the way then and I thought that stuff bothered West Noble tonight.
“Coming to our place, not familiar with a tournament atmosphere and they just got off to a real slow start. I’d like to think we had something to do with that, of course.”
Valley held the Chargers to just five points in the first half. Five points, for two quarters.
That was the story of the game. 32 minutes summed up into two words, five points. West Noble could not get shots to fall, meanwhile Valley capitalized often on its chances. Meredith Brouyette, who led all players with 15 points, had a huge first half.
The junior hit a three to start the game, beat the buzzer at both the end of the first and second quarters and was just an all-around nightmare for the Chargers. Brouyette had four threes in the first half, five for the game. Valley used Brouyette’s effort to build a 28-5 halftime lead.
It looked as if the Lady Vikings would be completely unstoppable and hang 60+ on the board, but the second half proved to be much sloppier for Kindig’s team. West Noble was able to work the game down to 18 points, but never were closer than that again.
Valley entered the tournament as the favorite and it has certainly lived up to the hype so far. With just one game remaining for this step of the journey, the Lady Vikes have to be more focused now than ever before as they will meet Fairfield in the championship game.
“We have to come out and perform,” Kindig said. “We went pretty in the tournament last year with a lot of thee same girls. We had a few that I was worried about coming into the tournament, but they have now seen the floor in two sectional games and have done well. We just need to play like the veterans that we are. If we do that, we’ll be fine.
Anne Secrest was completely shut down for much of the game, not getting her first points until the third quarter. Secrest scored eight points and also tallied two blocks despite getting physically beaten inside by a very tough interior pretense from Hochstetler. Addy Miller added seven boards and five points.
Kenzie Cox and Becca Schermerhorn led West Noble with seven and six points, respectively.
Valley will put its 23-1 record on the line when it takes on Fairfield Saturday night at 7:30 P.M. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m.