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Tri-Village sophomore Ally Downing shots for two of her game high 18
Thursday as she led the
Patriots offensive attack to a 53-28 Cross
County Conference victory over
Mississinawa Valley. CNO photos by Dylan
Knoop
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Tri-Village
spoils home opener for MV
By George Starks
UNION CITY- The Tri-Village Lady Patriots remained undefeated on the
young season Thursday, posting a sound 53-28 victory over Mississinawa
Valley in Cross County Conference play.
Led by sophomore Allie Downing with 18 points, the Patriots were in
control most of the evening.
Senior Echo Brown was on a mission when it came to the board work,
collecting 15 rebounds, six off the offensive glass.
Even with the impressive win, Patriots coach Brad Gray was quick to
points a few things out.
“She was definitely cleaning up everything on the glass,” said Gray.
“We’ve got to shoot it better, I’ll tell you that though. For the
amount of good looks we got tonight, we hit a few early but I thought
after that we were settling for too many jumpers. We’re shooting too
many three’s right now. When you’re hitting them, that’s one thing but
when you’re not hitting them, you’ve got to get some inside touches and
inside out looks. I think we’re pretty god when we do that but we tend
to get away from that a little bit too much.”
On several occasions, the Patriots offense started with the defense.
Clinging to a 10-9 lead in the opening frame, the Patriot defense
created six big turnovers, opening up a 23-10 lead at the end of the
first quarter.
“Our full court defense was good tonight. I don’t know the stats but I
know we had a lot of points in transition,” said Gray. “I know against
Arcanum, our full court defense wasn’t good and we pulled it off early
because we weren’t creating anything and I thought tonight, we did. Our
press allows us to slow teams down so we can get our half-court defense
set up. I really like the half court zone we play. In our man to man
press, we’re looking to create some turnovers.”
Despite losing by a 25 point differential, Hawks coach Roger Collins
was optimistic about his teams effort.
“We never quit,” said Collins. “We’re a young team and we’re working on
that. They got discouraged because of certain things they were trying
to do. Turnover have been killing us and until we can get that solved,
we’re going to continue to be frustrated.”
After losing to Union (Modoc) on Tuesday, Collins gave the respect the
two teams he lost to deserved.
“These are the two toughest teams we’re going to play right away,” said
Collins. “We had 24 turnovers tonight but many of them were unforced. I
don’t mind being double teamed and their press didn’t hurt us. We
handled the press well but we didn’t handle things after the press was
over. We were rushing the ball but that’s youth.”
Now 3-0, the Patriots will host Newton next Thursday while the 0-2
Blackhawks will host Ansonia next Thursday as well.
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MV senior Mackenzie Dirmeyer shoots over a Tri-Village defender in the
Lady
Hawks home opener. Dirmeyer led the Hawks with 11 points.
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