ANSONIA – The Arcanum Lady Trojans basketball team put on a fast break clinic racing out to a quick 23-7 first quarter lead over the Ansonia Tigers and never looked back on their way to a 66-34 Cross County Conference win Thursday night.
Arcanum applied full court pressure to start the game and the opportunistic Trojans forced enough turnovers turning them into layups jumping on top 10-0 prompting a time out by Ansonia coach Jim Bolin to regroup.
Ansonia responded and got on the board on a short jumper from sophomore Mariah Troutwine at the 4:06 mark.
But there was no slowing down Arcanum as they continued fast play getting points from 8 different players in the opening frame led by freshman Taylor Gray with 6 points and junior Kayla O’Daniel with 4 points for a team total of 23.
The Trojan defense was effective in keeping Ansonia out of the paint for the majority of the game and if not for the outside shooting of senior Trinity Henderson (five 3’s) and Troutwine (three 3’s) the final score could have been worse.
Arcanum doubled up Ansonia in the second quarter scoring 14 more points to gain a 38-14 lead at the break.
Gray had another solid quarter along with freshman Hailey Unger each with 6 points.
The third quarter was the most competitive of the night with Arcanum winning it 12-11.
Gray again led Arcanum with 5 points along with another freshman Madelyn Fearon dropping 5 points as well.
Arcanum would then go on to record the 66-34 win.
Gray led all scorers in the game with 20, while Henderson of Ansonia poured in 19 for the Tigers and got 11 in support from Troutwine.
Arcanum had 9 players score in the game and afterward first-year coach Michael Dean was pleased with the play of his team.
“I can’t say enough about the team. We have a phenomenal freshmen class and they really step it up when called upon, they push the upperclassmen and we are getting good minutes across the board from a lot of kids,” stated Dean.
“We have a deep bench and I’m going to use it. We’re one team regardless of what five I put on the court and they are going to do some damage. We have to start getting ready for the tournament now, yea it’s 20 games away, but we have a tough conference to prepare us and we’ll need to be 10-12 players deep to compete and make a run,” Dean added.
“When I look across the stat sheet and I see all those assists it pleases me how they are sharing the ball and being very unselfish,” Dean concluded.
Ansonia coach Jim Bolin knew Arcanum was going to be a challenge and his team didn’t get off to a good start.
“We played real well Tuesday night opening up with an Indiana team that we beat. We normally shoot the ball better than we did tonight and part of that was due to Arcanum. We knew Arcanum was good coming in they were pretty good. We are playing young a lot of freshman and sophomores with one senior Trinity Henderson,” Bolin said.
“Tonight, it seemed like they hit everything, and we didn’t make anything, we just weren’t mentally tough enough and let their defense take us out of what we wanted to do and wasn’t ready to shoot the ball,” Bolin added.
“It could have been worse if not for the 3-point shooting from Trinity and Mariah. We just need to keep working hard and get better every day,” Bolin concluded.
Ansonia falls to 1-1 on the year and 0-1 in the CCC and will be back in action on Monday Dec. 3 at St. Henry.
Arcanum improves to 2-1 on the year and 1-0 in the CCC and will host Lehman on Saturday, Dec.1.
Score by quarters
Arcanum^23^14^12^11^–^66
Ansonia^7^7^11^9^–^34
Individual scoring
Arcanum – G. Garno 1-2-2/4 – 9, K. O’Daniel 0-2-3/4 – 7, C. Pohl 0-1-0/0 – 2, M. Fearon 0-3-2/2 – 8, T. Gray 0-10-0/3 – 20, E. Siculan 0-0-4/5 – 4, Sloan 0-1-0/0 – 2, H. Unger 0-4-2/2 – 8, Hartman 0-1-0/0 – 2. Totals 1-21-13/21 – 66
Ansonia – T. Henderson 5-0-4/6 – 19, H. Runkel 0-0-0/2 – 0, K. Reichert 0-0-1/2 – 1, M. Stover 1-0-0/0 – 3, M. Troutwine 3-1-0/0 – 11; Totals 9-1-5/10 – 34
3-pointers: Arcanum 1 (Garno), Ansonia 9 (Henderson 5, Troutwine 3, Stover 1)
