Lady Trojans Get Marquee Win Over Warsaw
BOURBON – It was a blast from the past during the girls basketball game between Triton and Warsaw Friday night. Though it was a slow start for the Lady Trojans, Triton would take advantage of even slower night from Warsaw to claim a 42-27 victory over the Lady Tigers for the first time since 1986.
Things started out alright for Warsaw. The visiting squad jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the early minutes of the first quarter and would hold Triton scoreless for nearly the first four minutes of the contest. Defensively, the Lady Tigers seemed set but Trion would go on a tear after getting its first points of the game. The Lady Trojans strung together a 15-0 run that carried over into the second quarter.
“We had some adjustments in the lineup tonight that sort of got us off to a slow start,” said Trion head coach Adam Heckaman. “We settled in after a little while, it really could’ve been a lot worse than it was. We were down 4-0 but we buckled down defensively and got some stops to make sure Warsaw didn’t build that lead up.”
The lineup change that Heckaman referred to was freshman Nicole Sechrist being moved into the starting five over Krystal Sellers. Sellers, a senior, has been battling a knee injury this week. Sellers would see time but aggravated the injury in the second quarter and left the game. Heckaman said that the injury is nothing major.
“Krystal (Sellers) getting injured certainly didn’t help us, but her absence from practice this week allowed us to get other girls rotated in,” Heckaman stated. “We didn’t know if Krystal would be able to play so we practiced as if we wouldn’t have her for this game and getting those girls more time throughout the week certainly helped when we needed them on the court tonight.”
Warsaw struggled to compete with an undefeated South Bend St. Joe squad earlier in the week. The girls forced a lot of shots with the Lady Indians tough defense and it seemed that the Lady Tigers rushed a lot of shots again tonight. Warsaw scored 12 points in the first three quarters combined before finally getting things together for a 15-point effort in the fourth quarter.
“We ran our offense, that helped get us the 4-0 lead,” began Warsaw head coach Michelle Harter. “We got reversals, kicked-in, kicked-out. We got our feet set and ready to shoot. Then, from that point on, we stopped doing that. We stopped cutting hard, stopped getting movement and really started to force the issue.”
Harter later mentioned that there was a lot of immaturity with shot selection from her young team. The Lady Tigers did seem to force bad shots early on and would only be shooting 14-percent from the field heading into the half. Dayton Groninger was Warsaw’s only double-digit scorer with her 10-point outing. Pam Miller led all players with eight rebounds for Warsaw.
Kylie Mason hit a pair of threes for Triton and would lead all players with 18 points and five steals. Becca Kennedy added another 12 points for the home team. Kennedy and Lauren Hostrawser tied for a team-high six rebounds.
Warsaw (7-7) has little time to adjust as it will turn around for a 6:00 p.m. tip Saturday evening at home against LaPorte. The game will the first of a boy/girl double-header with the boys team tipping at 7:45 p.m.
Triton (8-4) will host an familiar foe in Oregon-Davis on Wednesday for a 7:30 p.m. varsity tip. O-D has downed Triton in each of the past three sectional title games.