NEW MADISON – The Tri-Village Patriots led from wire to wire, earning a 59-26 win over the visiting Newton Lady Indians in Thursday night WOAC action.
“When we started the game we were energetic, we were good,” said Tri-Village coach, Brad Gray. “We finished the first quarter really flat.”
“The girls hustled and gave it their all,” said first-year Newton head coach, Stefanie Landis. “I couldn’t ask for anything more but just some things we can work on. We’ll go back and work on those and we’ll get better the next time out.”
The Lady Patriots jumped out to an 8-0 lead at 6:40 in the opening quarter bringing a quick timeout from the Newton bench. Tri-Village made it a 12-0 advantage before the Lady Indians would dent the board at 4:58 to make it a 12-2 score. Tai Mize paced the Lady Patriots with eight first-quarter points pushing Tri-Village out to a 19-7 lead after one period of play.
“Tonight was about us,” Coach Landis noted. “We had to do the things that we were doing well. We came in, the turnovers and we couldn’t make a wide-open layup. Your defense can only hold so much and when you can’t produce on offense it puts a lot of pressure on your defense.”
Sydney DeLong’s 7 second-quarter points including a trey helped Tri-Village to a 12-6 second period sending the teams to the break with the Lady Patriots up 31-13.
“The second quarter we did the same thing as the first,” said Tri-Village coach, Brad Gray. “We came out with a lot of energy in the early part of the second quarter and then finished the first half flat.”
“I was pretty disappointed in the locker room at halftime with where we were at,” Gray added. “I thought we could have had a little more separation than we did.”
Period No. 3 went to Tri-Village by a 13-7 count with five Lady Patriots putting points in the scoring column to lead 44-20 with one quarter to play. Through three periods of play, Newton had held Tri-Village to two 3-pointers.
“We were focused on the things they did well and we wanted to make sure we were covering the threes, we were fronting the big post inside,” Landis said. “Our defense did exactly what we needed tonight, we just needed to produce a little on offense to take some of that stress and pressure off that defense.”
Kenna Wilcox drained two Tri-Village fourth-period 3-pointers and Kynnedi Hager knocked down 5 points to lead the Lady Patriots to a 15-6 fourth quarter giving the home team the win.
“She’s getting better every game, she’s starting to figure things out,” Coach Gray said of his 5’7” freshman, Kenna Wilcox. “It seems like every time we need a shot she tends to knock down some big shots for us. She gets a lot of hustle plays, gets a loose ball, or tracks a ball down on a bad pass or something like that. I love what she brings to the table – she’s a high-energy kid.”
“The second half even though it probably played out fairly similar to how the first half did I felt like we were a little bit better,” Coach Gray concluded.
Black led Tri-Village and all scorers with a game-high 14 points.
Tri-Village improves to 7-1 overall and 4-0 in conference play. Newton stands at 5-3 overall and 2-2 in league action.
BOXSCORE:
TRI-VILLAGE 59, NEWTON 26
TRI-VILLAGE – B. Black 14, Kenna Wilcox 12, T. Mize 11, K. Hager 11, S. DeLong 7, Kiersten Wilcox 6 – TOTALS 20 7-8 4 59
NEWTON – Reese Hess 8, F. Harbour 8, Rylee Hess 8, E. Rapp 2 – TOTALS 10 3-6 1 26
3-POINTERS
Tri-Village 4 (Kenna Wilcox 2, S. DeLong 1, B. Black 1)
Newton 1 (Rylee Hess 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS
19-12-13-15 59 Tri-Village
07-06-07-06 26 Newton
