Winning and losing basketball games has a lot to do with overcoming.

Warsaw did it, while Tippecanoe Valley didn't. The Tigers overcame their early-game jitters, but the Vikings could not overcome their shooting woes in Warsaw's 55-26 win Thursday in the first game of the Warsaw Girls' Basketball Sectional.

The Vikings hit only 6 of 34 (18 percent) shots from the field, including 0 of 6 in the second quarter when the Tigers were able to put things away.

"I thought we had good shots," Valley coach Mike Walters said. "We had a couple of girls struggling with their shooting lately, and it showed up big time tonight. We just couldn't get it going."

With the Vikings struggling from the floor, Warsaw didn't exactly go out and grab control of the game right away. The Tigers shot only 11 of 32 in the first half, which was mainly attributed to those typical nerves and jitters in the first game of a sectional.

"Sarah Calhoun hit our first shot, and then there was like a lid on the basket," Warsaw coach Will Wienhorst said. "We had some jitters and we weren't squaring up.

"It was on the defensive end too," he said. "I know we held them to 13 first-half points. They only hit three field goals, but they hit seven foul shots and that really showed we weren't moving our feet. That really showed we were nervous too."

Warsaw led 12-8 after the first quarter despite shooting 5 of 16 from the field, because Valley was only 3 of 7. The Vikings then proceeded to go 0 of 6 in the second quarter and the Tigers built the halftime bulge to 25-13.

Then Valley was playing from behind in the second half, causing the Vikes to come out of their tight 2-3 zone that had been stubborn in first half against the talented front line of the Tigers. The result was Valley didn't match up well inside with the Warsaw and the game was never close.

"I thought in the first half our defense played pretty good," Walters said. "Then we got behind and had to go into a man-to-man defense. When we went to the man defense, we couldn't begin to compete with them. When you get behind, you can't stay back in a zone and expect to go out and get some turnovers."

Warsaw outscored Valley 30-13 in the second half.

"It wasn't like we blew them out early," Wienhorst said. "You aren't going to do that in the sectional. We played a little shaky early because of the jitters, but as the game progressed we really put in a solid effort tonight."

A big key for the Tigers was being able to get the lead and hit some outside shots to force the Vikings out of the 2-3 zone that was bottling up the Warsaw offense, which focuses on getting the ball inside to its big people.

"That is a goal of ours to shoot from the outside," Wienhorst said. "That is very important for us, and we are going to stick with it."

Calhoun and Tiffany Ross led the Tigers with 11 points each. Ross added 10 rebounds. But the Tigers got big efforts of their bench from Holli Murphy (seven points) and Shannon Barger (five points, six rebounds).

The Vikings wrap up a turbulent season at 8-10, not a bad record for a team that began the season with only one player with significant varsity experience.

"We played well enough defensively for three quarters, we just didn't have enough offense," Walters said. "I am very encouraged with we have coming back for next year. The best thing about it is we won't be playing Warsaw. Valley is 0-for-whatever over the years."

Sophomore Rhonda Doud led the Vikings with 13 points.

Warsaw (13-6) gets the matchup everybody seems to look forward to in the sectional when it battles Columbia City (14-6) at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. [[In-content Ad]]