Tri-Village wins epic hard fought battle
Ansonia girls are for real
By George Starks

NEW MADISON- Don’t let the 2-5 record fool you.

If you have the Ansonia Lady Tigers on the schedule, be prepared to play the game.

Thursday, the Tigers rolled into New Madison looking to pull off a major upset.

It was less than a month ago when the two teams met in the Bill Burkett that the Lady Tigers gave Tri-Village all it could handle before losing by a very slim margin.

Thursday, the Tigers were looking to complete the job but this time, it wasn’t as close in the end.

With things knotted 25-25 at the break, the Tri-Village defense went to work in the second half, holding Ansonia to a mere 13 points, rolling to a whopping 69-38 Cross County Conference victory.

“It’s hard to even explain what just happened,” said Patriots coach Brad Gray. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen a team that looked so out of it the way we looked out of it then just turn it on at the snap of a finger. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a team that can do this the way they do it. It’s good they can turn it on like that but I just wish we could that all the time.”

Turning it on is exactly what the Patriots did.

Trailing the Tigers, 33-32 with 4:06 remaining in the third quarter, the Patriots started to march through the Tigers defense and stood tall against the Ansonia offense.

From the 4:06 mark of the frame, Tri-Village outscored the Tigers 17-3 to close out the third eight minutes up, 49-36.

The Patriots used a 3-2 half court trap that paid big wages. That combined with some excellent backdoor plays in the paint and some three point bombs by Echo Brown, the air was quickly removed from the lungs of the Tigers.

“We have to focus on the positives,” said Gray. “The last 12 minutes of the game was the big positive for us. We brought Allie downing in off the bench and she provides a lot of athleticism,” Gray said. “We get a little bit bigger when we bring her in and her ability to play out front makes other players become a little unsettled. She’s only 5-8 or 5-9 but she looks bigger than that. Her arms are so long and she’s only going to get better.”

On offense, the Patriots saw Brown open it up from outside while Downing and Crystal Falknor beck-doored the Tigers into another dimension.

Falknor finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds while Brown led all scorers with 20 points.

“We need that out of Crystal every night,” said Gray. “Tonight, by far, has been the best game of the year for her. We need that consistently from her. Echo can score in a lot of different ways. She has so many positives out there.”

The Patriots jumped out to a 9-0 lead early before the Tigers were able to get on the board on a deuce by Catey Fischer.

By the end of the opening eight minutes, the Patriots were up by three, 17-14, as Raya Mikesell drained a trey at the buzzer to give the Pats a 17-14 advantage.

“We came out of the gate good tonight and completely disappeared,” said Gray. “The called a time-out and we’ve struggled this year with things. We start good and fall off. We came out of the time-out and we lost momentum.”

It was a night when the Tigers had everything going their way in the first half only to see it fall apart in the second half.

“We just got a good, old fashioned butt whipping,” said Ansonia coach Jim Bolin. “Turnover killed us in the second half. We weren’t confident. We were trying to dribble the ball up the floor through the press instead of passing over it and they (the kids) know better than that.”

While a 31 point blow-out looks bad on Ansonia, it’s not what it seems to be.

“We just lost our composure,” said Bolin. “Tri-Village has a deep bench and we don’t have that. They can run the score up in a hurry. We just didn’t do what we had to do. Against good teams, you have to come out, play both halves and execute and we just didn’t do that.”

Tri-Village, 5-1, will play at Covington Saturday while the Tigers, 2-5, will play at Riverside.

Scheduling Note: The game that was scheduled to be played on December 6 between the Patriots and Franklin Monroe will now be played on Tuesday, February 4 at 6 p.m. at the Battleground in New Madison.