Tippecanoe Valley’s Asia O’Connor draws contact from Plymouth’s Kenzie Quissell while Jennah Nifong also defends during a game in Plymouth Thursday night. (Photos by James Costello)

PLYMOUTH — Tippecanoe Valley’s girls basketball team entered the Plymouth Rock Thursday winners of its last three games, including the Lady Vikings’ own Thanksgiving Classic tournament over the weekend, but head coach Chris Kindig still felt something has been missing lately.

Kindig wanted to see a little more excitement from his players, and the Vikings delivered right out of the gate, jumping out to an 11-0 lead over the host Pilgrims. Valley wound up needing all of that initial cushion as Plymouth used prolific 3-point shooting to battle back to within one possession on two occasions, but the ICGSA Class 3A, No. 4 Vikings stayed out front and held off their hosts for a 47-41 road win.

“This is always a tough place to play. Over the years we’ve come out on the other side of this,” said Kindig. “The girls, I thought, were a little more excited, and there was a little bit more intensity than what we’ve seen over the last week or two. It was really good to see. We talked about that before the game — that we really needed to just act like we’re having fun out there. There were a lot more smiles, and I walked through the locker room and there was a little bit more exuberation there.”

Valley (7-1) made hay with usual Plymouth starter Allie Andrews sitting out the game’s first three and a half minutes, using a full court press to score the game’s first 11 points. Once her number was called, Andrews went to work whittling away her team’s early deficit, pulling the Pilgrims (4-4) to within two possessions with nine straight points during a run in the second quarter. The Plymouth senior’s skip pass assist of teammate Halle Reichard opposite wing 3 at the 1:17 stop of the period pulled the Pilgrims within three points, and the Vikings led by a tenuous 25-22 margin at the half.

The visitors used full court pressure to good effect once more at the start of the third quarter, and they pushed that advantage back out to double digits with a 12-4 start to the half capped off by Olivia Trippiedi’s inside-out assist of an Emily Peterson wing triple. But Andrews and the Pilgrims battled back again, pulling all the way back to within two points with Andrews’ pull-up jumper from the baseline with just 2:04 remaining in the game.

Sophie Bussard lines up her jumper while Plymouth’s Kenzie Quissell (25) and Kacee Peters defend.

But Addy Miller converted both free throws after drawing a Claire Tanner foul on the opposite end to push the Vikings back out to a two-possession advantage, and — after a pair of missed front end free throws in the bonus by Trippiedi and Sophie Bussard — Peterson knocked down both of her charity tosses with Valley in the double bonus with 20 seconds on the clock. Asia O’Connor’s two-handed stuff of a Tanner layup attempt and Trippiedi’s free throw after ripping down the defensive rebound with 4.5 seconds remaining sealed the win and brought the score to its final margin.

Valley’s defense held Plymouth to 15 of 41 (36.5 percent) shooting from the floor, but seven 3-pointers — including three by Andrews — helped the Pilgrims make up for it in a game that went down to the wire.

“We lost Andrews a few times out there, but for the most part I thought we did a good job defensively. I thought our press was fairly effective tonight,” Kindig explained. “It kind of got us our lead there in the first quarter, and we came out in the third quarter and kind of bumped up our lead with that press there again. That continues to be a work in progress for us, but over the years I’ve liked to play that a little bit and I thought the girls did a good job with it tonight.”

While Andrews scored a game-high 14 points to go with two steals and two assists, Valley got a balanced effort from its starters.

Bussard finished with a team-high 12 points to go with six rebounds and three assists, while Peterson notched 10 with four assists, Miller chipped in eight, and O’Connor filled it up with 10 points, eight rebounds and three blocks.

“I thought she really worked hard over the summer,” said Kindig of O’Connor. “She’s gotten stronger. She’s jumping a little bit better. She’s gotten an opportunity to play a lot more this year than she did last year, and she’s taking advantage of it. She was a big part of what we did tonight. She had a couple big rebounds and finished around the basket.

Addy Miller makes a one-handed pass from the wing while Halle Reichard guards.

“But proud of all of them. We had good, balanced scoring tonight, and that’s kind of what it’s going to take for us down the road here.”

With its fourth straight win, Valley continues a five-game road stretch with its Three Rivers Conference game at Wabash Saturday. Kindig is hoping Thursday’s win propels his Vikings into the away stretch.

“We’ve got to build some momentum. I thought over the weekend we played OK but not to the level we’re going to need to. We’ve got this five-game road trip here, and I think we’ve got some tough challenges here,” he said.

“We’ve got practice tomorrow night, and we’ve got Wabash on Saturday. That’s a big conference game for us, and obviously we’ve got a lot of pride in what we’ve been able to do in the conference the past couple years and we want to continue to be able to do that.”

Valley’s JV lost its game 25-11 Thursday. Leading the JV Vikings were Haley Backus with four points and Emma Craig with three. Lindsey Janus, Emily LaFree and Alaina Clady each scored six to lead Plymouth’s junior varsity.