Karsi Sprowl & Lady Patriots Win Cross County Conference Championship!
NEW MADISON – The Lady Patriots honored their lone senior Karsi Sprowl Thursday night before the game, then took care of business defeating Twin Valley South 93-26 to clinch the Cross County Conference Championship in the process.
¬But before the game started there was an enthusiastic crowd on hand to honor 4-year Lady Patriot, Karsi Sprowl. Always a fan favorite who battles hard every chance she gets when on the floor, something Brad Gray was quick to point out when talking about his only senior.
“Karsi has been a model of what we hope our kids get out of playing basketball here at Tri-Village. She’s consistent in her approach to the game and doesn’t just show up every day we ask, but actually comes everyday locked in and ready to compete, not just to make herself better, but to help everyone around her get better as well. She’s spent four years as a 5-5 post kid literally battling 3 other post kids who are 6 footers who have all turned into All Ohio level players. I’m sure each of those kids’ credit Karsi for how hard she plays against them,” Gray praised.
And that hard play paid off early in the game as Sprowl was fouled on a rebound put-back sending her to the line to put her name on the scoreboard and in the scorebook.
For the second game in a row the Patriots came out and lit it up racing out to a 32-12 first quarter lead and 66-15 by the end of the first half.
Rylee Sagester coming off a 32 point game against Northmont picked right back up from there scoring 27 points in the first half alone. The sophomore sharpshooter would connect on 6 triples (14 in the last 2 games) would end the night early with a total of 33 points, 6 assist, 6 steals and 5 rebounds.
Tri-Village lead 88-26 at the end of the third quarter and went on to finish the game with a 93-26 victory.
Morgan Hunt went 7-8 from the field and finished the night with 15 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists. Meghan Downing posted another double-double, finishing the night with 12 points (6-7 shooting) and 11 rebounds. Delanee Gray would bury four triples for 12 points. Torie Richards would round out the starting five with 11 points, 5 assists, and 3 steals. The Lady Patriots dished out 24 assists and crashed the boards for 23 offensive rebounds for a complete team effort.
With the win the #9 AP State Poll Tri-Village girls team improved to 16-2 overall and 11-0 in the conference with one league game remaining.
The first goal for any team is to capture a league title, coach Gray would say after the game.
“Winning the Conference Championship is always one of the first goals we set out to achieve and I’m really proud of this group for being able to do it because we felt as though this was going to be an extremely difficult year to do it,” Gray said.
“We graduated over 3200 points and 1300 rebounds with the 4 seniors who graduated from last year so we really needed some inexperienced kids to step up and they answered the bell,” Gray complimented.
This was the 7th CCC title earned by Coach Gray teams putting him at the all-time #1 spot in league history – forever! Current Bradford girls coach Chris Besecker finishes with the 2nd most titles, 6, all while coaching at Covington.
The Tri-Village girls basketball program has won an impressive 40 straight conference games over the last 3 years and added a 3rd straight title. Their 14th championship overall and the most of any of the 13 member schools in the 42 year history of the Cross County Conference. This is far and away more than the 2nd most won by Miami East, with 8 titles.
Coach Brad Gray and the Lady Patriots will have to start a new streak when they join the Western Ohio Athletic Conference next year with a clean slate.
The slate of the CCC has been written and the Tri-Village Lady Patriots basketball program legacy will forever be etched in stone as “Champion of all “CCC” Champions”.
Box Scores
Score By Quarters
TVS 12 … 03 … 11 … 00 – 26
TV 32 … 34 … 20 … 07 – 93
Team Scoring
TV – Sagester 33, Gray 12, Bell 2, Hunt 15, Scantland 2, Downing 12, Richards 11,
Black 4, Sprowl 1, Bennett 1; Totals 10-25-11/18 – 93
TVS – Davidson 10, Clark 2, Neal 2, Newport 12; Totals 7-2-1/3 – 26
