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Tri-Village senior Damien Cook rolled up 23 points and had 11 rebounds
Tuesday to lead the Patriots to a 63-33
spanking of Franklin Monroe in
the Hangar. The Patriots remain undefeated with a 4-0 mark. Tri-Village
will welcome
Troy Christian, Greenon and Jefferson in Monday for the
Patriot Invitational. CNO Photos by Dylan Knoop
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Patriots
defense dominates FM
Jets flame out early
By George Starks
PITSBURG- Usually when a Jet engine flames out, it will be in
mid-flight.
In the case of Franklin Monroe, the Jets engines flamed out and never
made it to the runway.
Tri-Village, led by senior Damien Cook’s 25 points, put four players in
double figures Tuesday as the Patriots rolled into The Hangar and
dropped a 63-33 Cross County Conference loss on Franklin Monroe.
It didn’t take long for the Patriots to get the party started as Cook
drained a couple of treys early and before the Jets knew what had
happened, Cook had tallied eight of the 10 Patriots points early and
with 4:50 remaining in the opening frame, it was 10-2 in favor of the
visitors.
Cook and the Pats would continue to roll and hold the Jets to a mere
four first quarter points and a 19-4 lead with eight minutes in the
books.
"He has a great eye and you talk about skill level,” said Pats coach
Josh Sagester. “If you're going to win against good teams, you've got
to make shots. He hit some big shots right from the onset.”
By the end of the half, the onslaught was on as the Patriots defense
shined, holding the Jets to 13 first half points and were on cruise
control taking a 29-13 lead to the locker room.
Things never changed once the third frame started.
Despite the Jets closing the gap to 10 points early in the stanza, the
Patriots never stopped and rolled to a 46-23 lead with eight minutes
left to play.
“I thought our on ball defense was really good,” admitted Sagester. “I
thought we did a really nice job on their ball screens and working
ourselves through those. For the most part, I thought our rebounding
was good, especially early. They had a quick surge to start the third
quarter an we responded well to the way they came out to start the
second half. To their credit, they're a good basketball team. We have
some kids that will win some games but they all responded well to a
little bit of adversity and they made the plays.”
The Patriots, 4-0 and atop the CCC, will play host to Greenon, Troy
Christian and Jefferson Monday in the Patriots Invitational. On that
night, the annual Jet Tournament will be contested as Arcanum, Ansonia
and Mississinawa Valley will head to the Hangar to do battle.
Versailles will host its tournament as Miami East, Anna and Brookville
will be in town.
“We're excited about that,” quipped Sagester. “We're going to do this
first class just like they have done it for several years here (FM). So
we're excited about kicking this off and hopefully we'll have a very
good couple of days.”
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Patriots junior Tyler VanWinkle is forced to fight through FM junior
Zach Hyre and senior
Marcus Horner (10) as he goes to the bucket for
two of his 13 points on the night.
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