By Drew Terhall

DailyAdvocate.com

NEW MADISON — Tri-Village High School girls’ basketball picked up their fifth win of the season over Valley View High School on Nov. 29. The Lady Patriots defended their home court with a 67-28 victory.

Head coach Brad Gray said the team was ready for the challenge Valley View brings to them. The Lady Spartans were coming off an overtime win over WOAC member Preble Shawnee.

“We came in prepared for a battle. I think our kids were excited and ready to go. Even though things didn’t really go our way the first half of the first quarter, our energy and effort was really good,” Gray said.

The first quarter was the closest quarter of the game. Tri-Village was able to score off some turnovers, but couldn’t find early consistency in the half-court offense.

The Lady Patriots were up 13-8 after the first quarter. Valley View looked calm and were hitting their shots in the first quarter.

Tri-Village took over in the second quarter. The offense started to get going along with their transition offense. Senior Rylee Sagester led the charge on offense. She ended the first half with 18 points.

The defense held the Lady Spartans’ offense in check. Gray said the team did more on defense than what the box score would indicate.

“Even though we didn’t necessarily get steals on every possession, we were getting a lot of touches defensively and getting them out of rhythm offensively,” Gray said.

Tri-Village led 33-15 at halftime. After a 20-point second quarter, Tri-Village came out and were firing on all cylinders in the third quarter.

Senior Torie Richards took over in the third quarter. Richards had double-digit points in the third quarter to lead the offense. The Lady Patriots put up 22 points in the third quarter.

The team is starting to get used to playing together as a whole. Outside of four players, the team is playing players that have little to none varsity basketball experience. Gray said while there’s still more the team can improve on, they are starting to play with more chemistry.

“In the preseason, we had some ups and downs with that. Even as we got into our first couple games, I don’t know that we were gelling like we are now,” Gray said.

Richards and Sagester ended the game with 20 points each. Both made four three-pointers in the game. As a team, the Lady Patriots shot 42.9% from three. They shot 54% from the field.

Senior Morgan Hunt was the only other Lady Patriot to score double-digit points with 11.

Junior Bella Black led the team in rebounds with eight. Sagester also led the team in assists with six.

Tri-Village will host Tri-County North on Dec. 1 for their second WOAC matchup of the season.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]