Nicole Sechrist swings the ball out to the wing while Argos’ Abby Manikowski defends and Kagnie Hoffman looks on in the background Tuesday. (Photos by James Costello)

BOURBON — The diameter of a regulation basketball hoop is 18 inches, about twice the diameter of a high school girls basketball. But after watching many of their shots rattle in and out in their season-opener with Argos Tuesday night, Triton’s players had to see it to believe it.

Luckily for the Lady Trojans, junior guard Delanie Groves was there to prove it to her teammates.

Groves hit a pair of late jumpers, the lead changing hands for just the third and final time Tuesday with her pull-up from the wing at the 22-second stop of the third quarter, and ICGSA Class A No. 10 Triton outscored its guests 14-2 over the final stanza on the way to a 38-26 win at the Trojan Trench.

“I think we needed to see the ball go in the basket. Struggling to make easy shots early on. Delanie Groves comes in and hits a couple big buckets for us, and then I think the girls thought ‘Oh hey, it does fit,’” said Triton coach Adam Heckaman. “We got going there when she got those big baskets for us, got the lead and then we played a lot more comfortable, I felt.

“It’s our first game, and we just had to get some of the jitters out, I think.”

The Trojans (1-0) trailed most of the night prior to their dominant fourth period.

Junior Abigail Powell split a pair of free throws to open the scoring, but after Argos (2-1) senior Macee Strycker answered with a pull-up 3 from the top of the key, the Trojans never led again until the 3:37 stop of the third, when Whytnie Miller drew Rachel Kunce’s third foul and converted both her charity tosses to give her team a tenuous 20-19 advantage. That lead was all too brief, however, as Morgan Dunlap’s lay-in on the other end put the Dragons back out front, but the first of Groves’ two big shots rattled home with 22 seconds remaining in the stanza to give Triton a 24-23 lead.

Triton’s Abigail Powell is surrounded by Macee Strycker, right, Abby Manikowski, left, and Macy Morris in the paint in the first half Tuesday.

The score was knotted at 24-all headed into the final frame, but Hannah Wanemacher finally got free for a triple from the wing on a swing pass from Nicole Sechrist at the 5:20 mark to push the Trojans out to a two-possession lead, Sechrist pulled down her own rebound for a putback that stretched that lead to 31-24 with 3:20 on the clock, and the home team pretty much rolled from there.

“We talked about two things that we can control, and that’s our attitude and our effort. No matter what, those are things we can control,” Heckaman said. “We went through rough patches in the first half. The girls stayed positive; they kept encouraging each other. And then they kept pushing. They kept playing defense hard. They kept on the offensive end going at it and going at the boards, and it kind of worked out for them. It was a good effort win for us tonight.”

Wanemacher, Triton’s leading scorer from its 2016-17 campaign, was held to only five points on 1-of-5 shooting from the floor, but the Trojans debuted a much more balanced offensive effort in their ’17-18 opener Tuesday.

Miller finished with a game-high 15 points, and Powell chipped in eight ahead of four-point contributions from Groves and Sechrist. Wanemacher put up all five of her points in the fourth period as the Dragons scrambled to contain Triton’s other threats after keying on the senior swing player through the first three frames.

Whytnie Miller is fouled by Argos’ Macy Morris while Abby Manikowski also attempts to contain Miller.

“That’s something this year I feel we’re a lot better on — we have more kids that can find ways to score,” explained Heckaman. “Teams are going to key in on Hannah, but they’re going to quickly realize it’s not going to be an option for a whole game. They hounded Hannah tonight. We anticipated they might do that a little bit, but I was comfortable with that because Whytnie can score better. Nikki can create off that and find people; she can score some buckets. Delanie, if she can stay out of foul trouble, she can knock shots down. And then Abigail, she’s a scrapper. She’s going to be everywhere, she’s going to be after the ball, and she’s going to eventually figure out how to put those layups in and be able to even score more than the points that she scored.”

Meanwhile, Triton enjoyed a 38-26 rebounding advantage led by Wanemacher’s game-high nine caroms. The Trojans out-boarded the Dragons by a lopsided 22-9 margin over the second half, including five on the offensive end on their way to eight second-chance points for the night.

“It was something we’ve talked about throughout practices. It wasn’t anything we necessarily addressed at halftime,” said Heckaman of his team’s effort on the glass. “We weren’t doing a bad job on it, but the bottom line, in the second half when you out-rebound somebody by that many, a lot of it’s offensive rebounds. Now, some of it is because we missed layups and just kept getting our own rebound, but they stayed at it and they continued with the effort.”

Defensively, the home team mixed up a 2-3 zone and a 1-3-1 trap in the half court to hold Argos to 10-of-40 (25 percent) shooting from the field Tuesday, including only 2 of 13 conversions from beyond the arc. Strycker finished with six points — both scored from deep on 2-of-8 3-point shooting — alongside Abby Manikowski, and Dunlap put up a team-best seven points for the Dragons in their first loss of the year after wins over Caston and Bethany Christian last week.

“It was a good effort,” said Heckaman of his team’s defensive performance. “Macee had six points, and one of them I was not very happy with because we didn’t communicate, and she just dribbled right in and shot. Nobody picked her up. But other than that one, I felt like the girls did a good job of knowing where her and Dunlap were. Those are the two kids we said ‘You’ve got to know where they’re at. If the other kids beat us we’ll adjust, but we have to know where they are.’ We did a good job contesting them. We didn’t let Morgan drive to the basket very well, which hinders their ability to create for others. I thought the girls did a really good job of knowing when she was trying to drive and pinching that off and then contesting the shots from the other girls.”

Also for Triton Tuesday, Sechrist tallied three assists in her debut running the point, a stat matched by Wanemacher. Powell finished with a pair of steals for the Trojans in a game that featured a combined 29 turnovers.

In the JV game, Triton fell 23-14 to its Argos counterpart. Ashley Barlow scored a game-high seven points for the Dragons, while the Trojans got their scoring done by committee with Jaela Faulkner, Jessica Soriano and Alyxa Viers all putting up four.

Triton travels to John Glenn tonight.