ARCANUM – The Arcanum Lady Trojans defeated the Fort Recovery Lady Indians 55-43 in the opening round of the Roy Hutchinson Holiday Tournament.
The scoring duo of Hailey Unger and Madelyn Fearon combined for 34 points, Unger 17 first half points and Fearon 13 second half points while Tayor Gray was steady in each of the four quarters tossing in 15 points on the night.
“That is a dynamic duo,” Arcanum coach Abbey Moore said of Unger and Fearon. “When those two turn it on together I would hate to be on the other side of the floor coaching against that because that’s tough to stop. There is a lot on their shoulders and we know when one of them steps up they’re going to draw the pressure and that is going to open things up for someone else.”
“I felt like we were rebounding the ball pretty well and having Taylor (Gray) in there to change shots – she stepped it up,” added Moore. “She just came off of having a wrist surgery but played really well tonight. She was motivated.”
The Lady Trojans opened 2020-2021 season play with a starting lineup of four juniors; Ellie Fout, Madelyn Fearon, Hailey Unger and Taylor Gray with freshman Emilie Fout rounding out the starting five.
Unger had the hot hand in the opening period scoring the first six Lady Trojans points of the game on her way to an 11 point first quarter giving Arcanum a 15-14 advantage after one period of play.
The Lady Trojans made it a double digit 26-16 lead at 5:19 in the scocond and a 12-point 30-18 advantage before the Lady Indians battled back with a 5-0 run to close out first half play with Arcanum taking a 30-23 lead to the halftime break.
Unger added two second quarter triples, Taylor Gray added a bucket and 2-2 at the line for four points in the period, Ellie Fout accounted for an old fashioned 3-point play and Fearon added a basket to round out second quarter scoring.
The Lady Trojans defense owned third quarter play limiting the Lady Indians to 4 points in the period while the Arcanum offense was adding 12 points to the board with the big lead of the night (17 points) 42-25 at 1:31 in the third.
“That was huge,” Coach Moore said of the team’s third quarter defensive play. “We talked about that at halftime. We felt like our defense let us down at times in the first half. We set a goal every game and we weren’t going to be close to our goal with how many points we gave up in the first half. That really motivated the girls to come out in that third quarter. That was the difference maker setting the tone.”
Fearon paced the Lady Trojans’ third quarter play with 8 points including a 3-pointer sending the teams to the fourth with Arcanum leading 42-27.
Fort Recovery took the final period of the night 16-13 as the Lady Indians would send Arcanum to the charity stripe to go 11-18 and close out the opening game of the season with a 12 point victory over the visiting MAC school.
BOXSCORE:
ARCANUM 55, FORT RECOVERY 43
Arcanum – H. Unger 19, M. Fearon 15, T. Gray 15, Ellie Fout 3, M. McCans 2, Emilie Fout 1 – TOTALS 13 17-28 4 55
Fort Recovery – W. rammel 10, K. Wendel 9, A. Vaughn 9, P. Fortkamp 6, B. Homan 4, H. Wendel 3, M. Pearson 2 – TOTALS 14 6-12 3 43
3-POINTERS
Arcanum 4 (H. Unger 3, M. Fearon 1)
Fort Recovery 3 (K. Wendel 2, A. Vaughn 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS:
15-15-12-13 55 Arcanum
14-09-04-16 43 Fort Recovery
