PITSBURG – The Franklin Monroe Jets hosted the Tri-Village Patriots in a spirited Friday night WOAC matchup with the Patriots pulling out an eight-point come-from-behind 41-33 road win over the Jets.
“Our kids stepped up, responded well, and made some plays when they had to,” said Tri-Village coach, Josh Sagester. “Pretty gutsy effort. It’s never easy to come over here. We weren’t expecting it to be easy.”
“Our preparation put us in a good position,” said Franklin Monroe coach, Troy Myers. “Our guys executed well, they understood the plan defensively. They (TV) are a dangerous team. You try to key on one and then there are a couple of others that can hurt you and the score reflects that.”
Tri-Village grabbed an early 8-4 first-quarter lead only to have the Jets battle back with a 12-0 scoring run stretching into quarter No. 2 play to lead 16-8 with 5:49 showing on the second-period clock.
Eric Brenner paced Franklin Monroe with 10 first-quarter points including his lone 3-pointer of the game while knocking down 5-5 at the charity stripe giving the Jets a 14-8 advantage at the end of one complete.
With the 16-8 second-period FM lead in hand, both teams struggled to score in the second with Franklin Monroe taking the quarter by a single point; 5-4 sending the game to the break with the Jets holding a 19-12 advantage.
“It’s never easy on the road,” said Coach Sagester. “We didn’t make any shots early. You have to stay composed and I thought we lost our composure a little bit. It’s good for us to be able to respond. It took us a while to respond, we didn’t respond immediately.”
Tri-Village began chipping away at the Jets lead making it a 24-19 game at the five-minute mark in the third and got a Trey Sagester game-tying 3-pointer to knot the score at 24-24 at 3:32 in the third. The Jets closed out with a 5-4 run to lead 29-28 after three quarters of action.
“To be a good team you’re going to have to alleviate some of that pressure and I thought our guards grew up a ton tonight,” Myers said. “They were putting heat on us all night and I thought they grew up and handled the pressure for the most part.”
The first three minutes of the fourth quarter had the teams playing even with the score knotted a 30-30 with the final five minutes belonging to Tri-Village with the Patriots taking advantage of its smothering full-court pressure to close out scoring on the night with an 11-3 run to stay perfect in WOAC play with a 41-33 win.
“Our full-court pressure may not get you in the first quarter, may not get you in the second quarter but by the time it’s done we’re hoping we can wear you down to where your legs aren’t there to make perimeter shots,” Sagester stated. “I thought our full court competitive stamina was pretty much there all night.”
“We made some baskets in the second half,” continued Sagester. “Our guys stepped up and finished around the rim a little bit. We’ve been doing this a long time and to win as many games as we like to win in our program it’s not going to be pretty every night. You have to be gritty and tough and we found a way to win.”
“We did a good job defensively but our execution in the last three minutes just shot us in the foot,” Coach Myers said. “It has to be a learning lesson for us.”
Trey Sagestler led Tri-Village and all scorers with a game-high 14 points.
“They made it hard on him,” Coach Sagester said of Trey. “It got a little physical at times and that’s part of the game. He’s our go-to guy on the offensive end a little bit right now and he was able to finish a couple of baskets down the stretch for us when we needed them. “As a sophomore that’s a lot to ask – our seniors Braden Keating and Tanner Printz stepped up down the stretch and Noah Finkbine gave us tremendous minutes tonight.”
“That defense we put on display tonight is good enough to get us deep in a tournament run but our offense is trailing right now,” Meyers said. “We have to figure out how to get that up to a level of our defense.”
BOXSCORE:
TRI-VILLAGE – T. Sagester 14, B. Keating 11, N. Finkbine 9, D. Black 4, T. Printz 2, R. Wehr 1 – TOTALS 14 7-12 2 41
FRANKLIN MONROE – E. Brenner 13, EB Fall 9, L. Brenner 7, G. Wackler 4 – TOTALS 7 9-11 3 33
3-POINTERS
Tri-Village 2 (T. Sagester 1, B. Keating 1)
Franklin Monroe 3 (EB Fall 1, E. Brenner 1, L. Brenner 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS
08-04-16-13 41 Tri-Village
14-05-10-04 33 Franklin Monroe
