Triton Sweeps Doubleheader At Culver
CULVER — Both Triton teams jumped out to 11-0 starts in the boys/ girls doubleheader at Culver Community Friday night.
But where the Lady Trojans had to fight down a nip-tuck final stretch, the Trojans coasted to a near 40-point margin of victory in a Hoosier North Athletic Conference sweep.
TROJANS 65, CAVALIERS 28
Triton’s best offense was a great defense against the host Cavaliers. The Trojans recorded 19 steals for 31 points off turnovers on the way to the lopsided win.
“Our guys have some natural instincts,” said head coach Jason Groves. “We’ve got some quickness. We’ve got some guys that can read things pretty well, and it’s nice to see them make basketball plays. That’s what these guys do. I didn’t do much on the sideline tonight; it was them just playing basketball.”
The Trojans held Culver to 7-of-24 (29 percent) shooting from the floor while converting at a 23-of-51 (45 percent) clip themselves. The guests knocked down nearly 62 percent (13-of-21) of their shots over the first two quarters while building to a 38-14 halftime advantage. Three players wound up in double figures as Tyson Yates tallied 18 points and six steals, Ashton Oviedo finished with 16 points, and Tyler Heckaman put up a double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds with four blocked shots.
“We’re getting balance. We’re getting more guys capable of scoring 20 points, so that’s nice to see,” Groves said. “I’m proud of our guys. They work hard. It’s a great group to coach. They listen, and it showed tonight.”
Culver got eight points from Donovan Ziaja and seven from Jalen King. The Cavs dropped to 1-11.
Triton improved to 6-4 and a 2-1 in the HNAC. The Trojans enter next week’s Bi-County Tournament having won four of their last five.
“We’re not where we want to be, but we’re headed in the right direction,” said Groves. “We’ve still got to get better on the boards a little bit. Defensively we’ve just got to be a little bit more fundamental at times — we fouled a little bit too much tonight — but we’re getting there.”
LADY TROJANS 34, LADY CAVS 31
With Whytnie Miller out of the lineup after dislocating her shoulder in the final three minutes of her senior night game with Winamac Tuesday, the Lady Trojans have had to make some adjustments. They started fast at Culver with 11 unanswered points but left the door open for the Cavs before hitting just enough free throws down the stretch to pull out the win in Friday’s opener.
“My heart breaks for her. She hasn’t walked off the floor on her own in the last three years,” said Triton coach Adam Heckaman of Miller, who also suffered two torn ACLs each of the past two seasons. “But yes, we had to make some adjustments. We put some news things in Wednesday night, worked on it a little bit last night. We worked on getting the ball to the post a little bit more, which I thought we did a good job of early.”
“I thought the girls did a good job in two days of changing some of the things that we were doing and looking for some different things,” he continued. “And I thought it showed early on and then that kind of carried us through.”
Triton canned 8-of-14 (57 percent) of its shots in the first half but only led Culver by a tentative 19-18 margin at halftime, and the game remained tight from there. Kinsey Atkins knocked down a pair of free throws with 29 seconds remaining in the game to stretch her team’s lead out to three points, then grabbed a quick steal but missed a transition attempt on the other end.
Culver’s Kenzie Binkley missed both of her free throws with one second left and the final margin remained 34-31.
“Kinsey has been solid for us this year. She’s learning. She’s got a good shot, but eighth grade to varsity is a transition,” said Heckaman. “She’s shooting a little bit too quick, so we’re working on that. She did some really good things tonight in handling the pressure. Between her and Taren (Yates) stepping up without Whytnie helping there.”
While Atkins finished with eight points, Yates put up nine points with six steals, and Jaelyn Bules notched another nine points on ultra-efficient 4-of-5 shooting.
Alex Temme finished with a bane-high 16 points for Culver, which dipped to 8-9 with the loss.
Triton moved to 8-11 and an even 3-3 in the HNAC. Friday’s win snapped a three-game skid by the Lady Trojans and should be a confidence boost headed into Bi-County Tournament play next week.
“We’ve had stretches where we looked at games, and we knew it was going to be pretty tough. Winamac is solid. Before that we had O-D. Before that we had Pioneer, and I think Pioneer is honestly one of the better 1A teams that nobody is talking about in northern Indiana,” explained Heckaman. “So we went through a pretty tough three-game stretch there, and then losing Whytnie, this was big for our girls to be able to kind of persevere and get through this one against a tough Culver team.”