NEW MADISON – Tri-Village broke open a close game late in the first quarter and early part of the second quarter and then clamped down defensively in the second half on its way to a 55-28 win over visiting Bethel on Thursday.
The Patriots held a 9-7 lead with 4 minutes to play in the first quarter and then held the Bees scoreless the rest of the way while adding 6 more points to go up 15-7 after one quarter of play.
Lissa Siler had the hot hand in the quarter with 7 points. Meghan and Maddie Downing both added 4 points each for the Pats.
In the second quarter the Patriots struggled to put the ball in the hoop, but Emma Printz gave the team a lift scoring all 7 of her points for the game in the period and Tri-Village led 24-11 at the break.
“I thought our zone was good to us in the second quarter and into the second half,” Tri-Village coach Brad Gray said. “It’s something we don’t go to often and it wasn’t something I wanted to go to tonight. I’m disappointed we had to go to it, foul trouble kind of put us into that situation, but we weren’t guarding well in our man-to-man for whatever reason and our 32 zone was good.”
Lissa Siler and Meghan Downing both had big second halves with Downing adding 13 points, for a total of 19 to lead all scorers, and Siler added 11 more for a total of 18 for the game.
The Patriots had little trouble as they went on to win the conference game over Bethel by the score of 55-28.
It’s hard to be upset with your team when you get a win and your team is 11-1 but one thing coach Gray would like to see is his team play with more consistency. With key conference games next week against Covington, who is 6-0 in the league, and Miami East at 5-1 they will need to be playing some of their best basketball.
“We’re 11-1 with our only loss to Versailles, a real quality team,” Gray said. “We aren’t giving up many points, but we have to get better defensively and improve our consistency in shooting the basketball. We couldn’t buy a bucket tonight, and we were getting quality looks. That consistency can be the difference in big games, we have those coming up next week,” Gray concluded.
Tri-Village will host non-league Preble Shawnee Jan. 7, Covington Jan. 10 and then travels to Miami East Jan. 12.
Score by quarters:
Bethel^7^4^8^9^–^28
Tri-Village^15^9^16^15^–^55
Individual scoring:
Bethel – Reittinger 1-3-0/0 – 9, Moorman 0-1-0/2 – 2, Lowery 0-2-0/0 – 4, Stopps 0-0-1/2 – 1, Gray 2-1-0/2 – 8, Floyd 0-1-0/0 – 2, Heffner 0-1-0/0 – 2. Totals 3-9-1/6 – 28.
Tri-Village – Printz 1-2-0/0 – 7, Me Downing 1-8-0/0 – 19, P. Bietry 0-1-0/0 – 2, L. Siler 2-4-4/7 – 18, Ma Downing 0-2-5/9 – 9. Totals 4-17-9/16 – 55.
Three-pointers:
Bethel: 3 (Gray 2, Reittinger 1)
Tri-Village: 4 (Siler 2, Printz 1, Me. Downing 1)
Records: Bethel (7-6, 2-4) – Tri-Village (11-1, 6-0)
