NEW MADISON – In the last three games Tri-Village’s defense has held teams to 22 points or less. This time it was Arcanum who was held in check as the Patriots posted a 49-21 rivalry game win.
A game expected to be much closer just never developed on the court … the only back and forth was some good-natured ribbing from the student sections from each respective school.
Tri-Village jumped out to an 8-0 lead before Gracie Garno made one of two free throws at 3:29 to get the Trojans on the board. The Patriots’ Lissa Siler scored 7 and Maddie Downing 4 in the opening period to go up 11-3.
The Patriots’ defense was solid in the first quarter as Tri-Village continued to buy in to the defensive principles of playing solid by keeping everything in front and refraining from gambling and getting out of position.
Tri-Village extended the lead to 18-3 in the second quarter on back to back triples from Emma Printz and Siler before Arcanum answered with a trey from Lexi Unger in front of the Tri-Village student section at 3:33.
Unger scored again on a short baseline jumper and Garno added fielder in the paint … but it wasn’t enough offense to keep pace as Tri-Village held a 23-10 lead at the break.
Tri-Village’s defense again held Arcanum to 3 points in the third quarter while scoring 9 to go up 32-13.
“Our kids are really starting to come along on the defensive end. They understand that if you play solid and don’t gamble instead of running around like your hair is on fire that we do better,” Tri-Village girls basketball coach Brad Gray said. “They find opportunities to get steals instead of gambling where they are almost a 100 percent sure they can go get it. They have seen the results when you make teams have to score over top of us instead of getting around us.”
“I don’t know what we shot from the floor tonight, but it definitely was not a high percentage, and when you aren’t knocking down shots you aren’t going to win a lot of games,” Arcanum coach Matt Grote said.
In the final stanza Tri-Village worked the ball into the paint with 6-foot sophomore Maddie Downing scoring 11 points to lead TV to a 49-21 Cross County Conference win.
“Maddie’s teammates are starting to understand they have a pretty good 6-foot post player, and they work to get her the ball. Not only is she gaining their trust by finishing, she is also a pretty good passer out of the post, and when she gets double teamed she will kick it back out.” Gray said.
“I tell you what, Downing is tough inside, and we just didn’t have an answer for her tonight. She scored 21. We just don’t match up, and she was hard for us to defend.” Grote said. “I give them (Tri-Village) a lot of credit; that’s a good basketball team, and they played a good game.”
Arcanum was led by Unger with 8 points. The Trojans fell to 10-9 on the year and 7-4 in the Cross County Conference. They travel to Lehman Catholic on Saturday.
Downing had 21 points and 10 boards, and Siler had 16 for the Patriots, who improved to 16-3 overall and 10-1 in the conference. They will host Division II Chaminade Julienne on Monday.
“This is one of the many non-conference games on our schedule designed to prepare us for the postseason,” Gray said. “Chaminade is a very athletic team, probably the most athletic we will have seen at this point in the season. They will defend hard and get out and put a lot of pressure on us, and they have a big girl inside who is very effective. Regardless if we win or lose, if we can come out and play competitive like we did tonight it will help us get better.”
Box score:
Score by quarters
AR … 03 … 07 … 03 … 08 – 21
TV … 11 … 12 … 09 … 17 – 49
Individual scoring
Arcanum – Sasha Derringer 2, Kayla O’Daniel 5, Aidan O’Brien 1, Camille Pohl 2, Gracie Garno 3, Lexi Unger 8; Totals 2-6-3/9 – 21
Tri-Village – Emma Printz 5, Peyton Bietry 3, Trisa Porter 4, Lissa Siler 16, Maddie Downing 21; Totals 4-13-11/17 – 49
