UNION CITY – The Tri-Village Lady Patriots scored early and often in a 90-24 win over Mississinawa Valley in girls basketball action Thursday night.
The Patriots jumped out to an early 19-0 lead with many points coming in the open floor and off the press.
The Blackhawks got on the board at the 4:05 mark in the first quarter on a triple from Lindsay Johns and it would be the only points they would score in the first quarter.
The Patriots held a 29-3 lead at the end of the first period. Freshman Meghan Downing led the Patriots in the first quarter with 13 points including a triple. Lissa Siler had 7 and Maddie Downing 6 points.
Mississinawa scored 4 points in the second quarter on fielders from Kya Lavy and Sidnie Hunt and the Patriots slowed a little on the offensive side with 21 points to take a 50-7 lead at the break.
Hunt was more aggressive in the third quarter scoring 5 points, but was the only Hawk to score.
Tri-Village put up 22 points to expand its lead to 72-12 to end the third quarter.
In the final stanza, a lot of the Patriots were seeing action with freshmen Molly Scantland scoring 8 of the 18 points by the Patriots as they went on to win by a final score of 90-24.
Tri-Village was led by Meghan Downing with 25 points, Maddie Downing 20, Lissa Siler 19 and Emma Printz 12.
Mississinawa doubled its first three quarters output with 12 points in the final stanza. Olivia Murphy had 5 and Lavy 4 in the period.
“Tonight, we focused on our offensive execution and not settling for three’s,” Tri-Village coach Brad Gray said.
“We wanted to get more inside paint touches because I feel like we have been quick to fire up three’s and developing bad habits. We did a much better job tonight doing that when we weren’t scoring on our transition offense,” Gray added.
“We were frustrated after the Houston game Monday night, we didn’t play our best and we had a long talk with the team afterwards about things that aren’t working and only the kids can fix. I think the kids took it to heart. Tonight it looked like they were having more fun and I really liked our running game,” Gray stated.
“We have got to be better in transition especially against teams that like to sit down and guard. I think our gift is our speed and ability to push the basketball and at times I don’t think we give ourselves an opportunity to play to our strength. Hopefully tonight that will get us back into that mode and then if it’s not there showing patience in our half-court offense and not settling,” Gray concluded.
“We’re going through a tough stretch right now, before we played Covington and Tri-Village this week we had St. Henry and Union City and next week Bethel and Miami East so with the exception of our game on Saturday with Ansonia all these teams we are playing have just one or two losses and we definitely are being tested,” Mississinawa Valley coach Michael Page said.
“This is putting us in a position where we have to grow and learn, learn how to find the positives in every game. It can be frustrating, but our girls are really excited about our game on Saturday. We can’t let these last few losses stick with us, or keep us from doing things right to get better, and hopefully we will come ready to play on Saturday,” Paige concluded.
Tri-Village improves to 6-1 overall and 3-0 in the Cross County Conference and will host Newton Saturday.
Mississinawa Valley falls to 0-7 and 0-3 and will host Ansonia Saturday.
Score by quarters:
Tri-Village^29^21^22^18^–^90
Mississinawa Valley^3^4^5^12^–^24
Individual Scoring:
TV: Gray 0-1-1/1 – 3, Godown 0-0-0/2 – 0, Printz 1-3-3/4 – 12, Scantland 0-4-0/0 – 8, Me. Downing 1-10-2/5 – 25, Ma. Downing 0-7-6/9 – 20, A. Bietry 0-1-0/0 – 2, P. Bietry 0-0-1/2 – 1. Totals 5-31-13/23 – 90.
MV: Hunt 1-2-1/2 – 8, Johns 1-0-1/2 – 4, Murphy 1-1-0/0 – 5, Lavy 0-2-2/3 – 6, Stachler 0-0-1/2 – 1; Totals 3-5-5/9 – 24.
3-pointers – TV 5 (Siler 3, Me. Downing 1, Printz 1), MV 3 (Hunt 1, Johns 1, Murphy 1)