NEW MADISON – Tri-Village was locked in and focused against DI Trotwood Madison and it showed as their defense held the Rams to just 38 points. They with stood relentless pressure by the quicker, faster and more athletic team scoring 69 points in an impressive win that saw Brad Gray reach a milestone, his 300th career victory as the Lady Patriots coach.
Tri-Village’s zone defense frustrated Trotwood early allowing just 3 points on a triple by Quintajah Huffman in the first quarter. Huffman scored 17 to lead the Rams for the day.
Tri-Village couldn’t have started any better in the opening frame with Morgan Hunt scoring 10 of their 19 points jumping on top 19-3 stunning the visitors.
The Rams were determined and relentless with pressure applied on point guard Rylee Sagester, that usually means someone is open, and Delanee Gray took advantage knocking down two triples in the 2nd quarter, as the Patriots took a 31-10 lead at the break.
The Rams full court pressure continued into the 3rd period making it difficult for TV to operate in a half-court offense … but they scored in the broken court andon second effort. Morgan Hunt did much of the damage with 15 points to deny the Rams comeback hopes.
TV took at 52-26 lead into the final stanza outscoring Trotwood 17-12 with Rylee Sagester adding 8 of them as the Patriots went on to the 69-38 win.
Morgan Hunt had an outstanding game leading Tri-Village with 32 points, 17 rebounds and 3 blocks and her effort didn’t go unnoticed by Coach Brad Gray.
“I don’t know how many offensive rebounds Morgan had today but I can think of 3-4 times where she battled, one time early in the game she had 3 offensive boards in row and finally converted. She’s a competitor, she comes to practice willing to battle and does it every night. We are starting to figure out we need to play through her each time down the floor, it makes all of us better and we’re letting her initiate more action to take advantage of that,” Gray praised.
Rylee Sagester had 14 points and 5 rebounds and Meghan Downing added 13 points, 12 rebounds, 7 blocks and 7 assists in the win.
Gray also was pleased with the growth and play of junior center Meghan Downing.
Meghan has been such a force for us all year and it’s been a pleasant thing to watch. Last year she lost some of her luster for the game and has re-found that luster. If you remember as a freshman how effective and dominate she was … well she’s playing at that level now with regard to want to, but with a maturity she didn’t have then taking her game to another level and we are extremely pleased with that,” Gray beamed.
It was just a week ago talking with coach Gray about the tough week his team had coming up, and the challenge of playing two DI schools, Beavercreek and Trotwood and a league game sandwiched in between with Bethel.
The Patriots passed the test coming away with 3 wins in that stretch, much to the delight of Gray.
“The Beavercreek game was a good outing for us, then in the Bethel game we didn’t play our best, and I give a lot credit to them, they played well but we found a way to win. Today I feel like we took a couple of steps forward, we need to find a way to keep doing just that,” Gray said.
“Our intensity level and attention to detail was at a high level, almost at an elite level today. Hopefully that is a stepping stone for usmoving forward. I think the potential for this team is really great, we haven’t really lived up to that early. We are really young, missing the summer season, missing the offseason hurt us in terms of development, being such a young team … but it feels like we are starting to hit our stride a little bit,” Gray concluded.
Sitting with 300 wins at Tri-Village and the young Patriots hitting their stride can only mean one thing … more wins to add to that tally for Coach Brad Gray.
The PATS improve to 9-2 overall and sit at 5-0 in conference and travel to Ansonia Monday then host Covington on Thursday in back-to-back league games.
Box Score
Score by Quarter
TW 03 … 07 … 16 … 12 – 38
TV 19 … 12 … 21 … 17 – 69
Team Scoring
TW Huffman 21, Dixon 2, Redwork 2, Sparkle 7, Myta 6, Daliyah 2; Totals 6-9-2/8 – 38
TV Sagester 14, Gray 6, Hunt 32, Downing 13, Richards 4; Totals 2-20-23/28– 69
