Triton Storms Into State finals
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
BOURBON - Twenty-one seconds remained until tip-off, and junior guard Shelly Miller, in Triton's pregame huddle, danced in rhythm to cheers yelled by Triton fans dressed in blue and yellow.
Saturday's girls basketball Triton A Semistate game against Lapel still needed to be played, but to Miller, this was a mere formality.
"I was thinking, we're going to state, we're going to state," she said. "I couldn't hold still."
Like Miller, Triton (19-7) danced its way past Lapel (13-12) 64-38, and now the Trojans are where Miller predicted they would be: in the state finals. Triton faces No. 4 Rising Sun (24-2), which knocked off No. 1 White River Valley (25-1) 50-42 in the Loogootee Sectional.
While Triton has sent athletes to individual state finals like cross country, this is the first time in school history a Triton team has advanced to the state finals.
Freshman guard Ashli Senff, playing with a sore ankle she turned in Triton's 59-53 morning win over Clinton Prairie, scored 22 on 10-of-17 shooting. Senior forward Missy Nifong and junior center Betsy Salyer each scored 10. Junior forward Rachel Speicher added eight points and four rebounds, while junior guard Brandie Ganshorn had seven points, five rebounds and four assists.
"We ran into a buzz saw," Lapel coach Kevin Brattain said. "I mean, Triton is good. They were more athletic than us. We were outsized and outquicked at every position. And they have a tremendous crowd. It was deafening over where we were. It had to be intimidating to our girls."
The Trojans won the semistate the same way they won the other postseason games, by running teams out of the gym. The Trojans play a full-court frenetic game with defensive presses and traps and an offense where one long pass gets the ball down the court.
After beating defending state champion Clinton Prairie in the first game, Triton coach Mark Heeter felt confident about the championship game - and this was despite knowing little about Lapel, as he expected Marion Lakeview Christian to beat Lapel in the morning game.
"I thought Clinton Prairie looked past us a little bit," he said. "We had heard they sold all kinds of tickets, but that their fans were just going to show up for tonight's game.
"I thought if we won that game, neither of the other teams were as good as Clinton Prairie."
Asked how a 13-12 team managed to make it even this far, Brattain said: "We played a very tough schedule. We had four teams within 20 miles of our school in today's semistates. We played some of those school two times. Out of our 11 losses before this game, seven were by seven points or less."
The deck was already stacked against Lapel, located in Madison County, south of Anderson and east of Noblesville. First, there was the lengthy trip north to Bourbon. Second, there was the game time -ÊTriton played in the 10 a.m. game, while Lapel played in the 11:30 a.m. game, which ended after 1 p.m. Third, there was the hostile territory, as a Triton team backed by loud fans hosted the sectional, regional and semistate and entered the game 13-1 on its home floor this season.
The deck finally collapsed on the Lapel Bulldogs when they lost 5-foot-11 senior forward Andrea Jennings, their leading scorer at 15.5 points per game, with 4:01 left in the first quarter and Triton leading 8-2.
Jennings, who has had a torn quad muscle for three weeks and has not practiced with the team, could go no more and collapsed in a heap in the court. She scored 24 earlier in the day in Lapel's 69-51 win over No. 6 Marion Lakeview Christian (17-8). How much did Lapel need her? The Bulldogs finished 12 of 47 (25 percent) from the field. After Jennings, Lapel had one other scorer, junior forward Misti Carpenter, average more than 10 points per game this season. Carpenter averaged 11.
"We knew coming in here her chances of being able to play two games were pretty slim," Brattain said. "You have to win the first to play the second, so we used her then. Her leg injury is not day to day; it's minute to minute.
"Even with her, we probably would have had to play an almost perfect game to win, just because Triton was so much more athletic than us, and after playing the second game, our legs were gone."
Said Heeter: "That had to hurt them, but I like to think we would have won anyway."
Triton smelled blood, and the Trojans went for the kill.
Leading the attack was the 5'7' Senff.
"Ashli was the difference," Heeter said. "I can't believe a player like that has three more years left."
Senff, who lives by one commandment -ÊThou shalt take the ball to the rack - scored 12 in the first half. Senff is so quick when she gets the ball, she drives through the lane and gets defenders twisted every which way as she streaks in for layups. More often than not, embarrassed defenders guard her with their backs.
"When I was younger, I used to be really short, so I would always drive to the basket," Senff said, "because that's how you go to the free throw line.
"I just try to beat the defense down the floor after the lead pass."
She delivered a strong performance despite turning her ankle on another player's foot in the morning win over Clinton Prairie.
"It was swollen a little bit, but we had ice on it right away, and that stopped it," she said. "It was sore, but I played through it."
While Senff scored 22 and helped Triton jump all over Lapel early, both coaches agreed the key basket was delivered by Ganshorn.
Lapel, which fell behind 30-14, made its one run in the game to cut the lead to 30-20 with 15 seconds left before halftime. The Bulldogs looked to have life at halftime, but then Ganshorn delivered a buzzer-beating three-pointer to make it 33-20.
"She took the air out of them," Heeter said.
Said Brattain: "That was the backbreaker. Instead of going in at the half feeling like we'd done some good things, we're down 13."
Lapel finished the first half with 15 turnovers, several of which were unforced like travelling or double-dribbling and several of which were caused by Triton's triangle press.
In case the Bulldogs had any other ideas about making a run, the Trojans squelched their hopes early in the third quarter. The Trojans rattled off nine points in less than a minute to turn a 35-24 lead with 5:32 left in the quarter into a 44-24 lead with 4:36 left. Senff was in the middle of the run with four points.
The Bulldogs, which had only one scorer in double figures, Carpenter with 16, rolled over. With Triton leading in the 20s in the third quarter, even Lapel's coach seemed resigned to his team's fate, as Brattain watched the game sitting on the bench with chin resting in hand.
On the other bench, excited Triton players couldn't sit still. Just like Shelly Miller was at the beginning of the game, the Trojans are dancing. They're in the Class A state championship game, 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
"This is the team of destiny," she said. "We have such unity as a team. No one can break us."
TRITON 64, LAPEL 38
Triton (19-7) 17 16 19 12 - 64
Lapel (13-12) 8 12 8 10 - 38
Triton FG FT A S R Pts.
Senff (G) 10-17 2-3 2 2 2 22
Salyer (C) 4-8 2-2 0 3 9 10
Nifong (F) 4-10 0-0 0 1 4 10
Speicher (F) 3-8 2-3 2 3 4 8
Ganshorn (G) 3-8 0-0 4 1 5 7
Miller 1-2 0-0 0 0 3 2
A. Feldman 1-2 2-2 2 0 3 4
Salisbury 0-0 0-0 2 1 6 0
C. Feldman 0-2 0-0 0 0 1 0
Bates 0-0 1-2 0 0 2 1
Bell 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Kreiter 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Totals 26-57 9-12 12 11 39 64
Lapel FG FT A S R Pts.
Carpenter (F) 6-11 3-4 0 0 13 16
Huff (C) 4-12 1-4 3 0 5 9
Brattain (G) 1-5 0-0 1 2 1 3
Collins (G) 0-3 0-0 0 0 3 0
Jennings (F) 0-3 0-0 0 0 0 0
Hobbs 1-3 3-6 0 4 1 5
Wilson 0-3 4-5 0 0 3 4
Deley 0-5 1-2 1 1 0 1
Russell 0-1 0-2 1 0 0 0
Hults 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Hoover 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Totals 12-47 12-23 6 7 27 38
Three-point goals -ÊTriton 3-7 (Nifong 2-3, Ganshorn 1-2, Senff 0-1, Miller 0-1), Lapel 2-11 (Brattain 1-5, Carpenter 1-1, Jennings 0-1, Wilson 0-1, Hoover 0-1, Deley 0-2). Turnovers -ÊTriton 16, Lapel 21. Fouled out -ÊA. Feldman. Total fouls -ÊTriton 20, Lapel 13. [[In-content Ad]]
BOURBON - Twenty-one seconds remained until tip-off, and junior guard Shelly Miller, in Triton's pregame huddle, danced in rhythm to cheers yelled by Triton fans dressed in blue and yellow.
Saturday's girls basketball Triton A Semistate game against Lapel still needed to be played, but to Miller, this was a mere formality.
"I was thinking, we're going to state, we're going to state," she said. "I couldn't hold still."
Like Miller, Triton (19-7) danced its way past Lapel (13-12) 64-38, and now the Trojans are where Miller predicted they would be: in the state finals. Triton faces No. 4 Rising Sun (24-2), which knocked off No. 1 White River Valley (25-1) 50-42 in the Loogootee Sectional.
While Triton has sent athletes to individual state finals like cross country, this is the first time in school history a Triton team has advanced to the state finals.
Freshman guard Ashli Senff, playing with a sore ankle she turned in Triton's 59-53 morning win over Clinton Prairie, scored 22 on 10-of-17 shooting. Senior forward Missy Nifong and junior center Betsy Salyer each scored 10. Junior forward Rachel Speicher added eight points and four rebounds, while junior guard Brandie Ganshorn had seven points, five rebounds and four assists.
"We ran into a buzz saw," Lapel coach Kevin Brattain said. "I mean, Triton is good. They were more athletic than us. We were outsized and outquicked at every position. And they have a tremendous crowd. It was deafening over where we were. It had to be intimidating to our girls."
The Trojans won the semistate the same way they won the other postseason games, by running teams out of the gym. The Trojans play a full-court frenetic game with defensive presses and traps and an offense where one long pass gets the ball down the court.
After beating defending state champion Clinton Prairie in the first game, Triton coach Mark Heeter felt confident about the championship game - and this was despite knowing little about Lapel, as he expected Marion Lakeview Christian to beat Lapel in the morning game.
"I thought Clinton Prairie looked past us a little bit," he said. "We had heard they sold all kinds of tickets, but that their fans were just going to show up for tonight's game.
"I thought if we won that game, neither of the other teams were as good as Clinton Prairie."
Asked how a 13-12 team managed to make it even this far, Brattain said: "We played a very tough schedule. We had four teams within 20 miles of our school in today's semistates. We played some of those school two times. Out of our 11 losses before this game, seven were by seven points or less."
The deck was already stacked against Lapel, located in Madison County, south of Anderson and east of Noblesville. First, there was the lengthy trip north to Bourbon. Second, there was the game time -ÊTriton played in the 10 a.m. game, while Lapel played in the 11:30 a.m. game, which ended after 1 p.m. Third, there was the hostile territory, as a Triton team backed by loud fans hosted the sectional, regional and semistate and entered the game 13-1 on its home floor this season.
The deck finally collapsed on the Lapel Bulldogs when they lost 5-foot-11 senior forward Andrea Jennings, their leading scorer at 15.5 points per game, with 4:01 left in the first quarter and Triton leading 8-2.
Jennings, who has had a torn quad muscle for three weeks and has not practiced with the team, could go no more and collapsed in a heap in the court. She scored 24 earlier in the day in Lapel's 69-51 win over No. 6 Marion Lakeview Christian (17-8). How much did Lapel need her? The Bulldogs finished 12 of 47 (25 percent) from the field. After Jennings, Lapel had one other scorer, junior forward Misti Carpenter, average more than 10 points per game this season. Carpenter averaged 11.
"We knew coming in here her chances of being able to play two games were pretty slim," Brattain said. "You have to win the first to play the second, so we used her then. Her leg injury is not day to day; it's minute to minute.
"Even with her, we probably would have had to play an almost perfect game to win, just because Triton was so much more athletic than us, and after playing the second game, our legs were gone."
Said Heeter: "That had to hurt them, but I like to think we would have won anyway."
Triton smelled blood, and the Trojans went for the kill.
Leading the attack was the 5'7' Senff.
"Ashli was the difference," Heeter said. "I can't believe a player like that has three more years left."
Senff, who lives by one commandment -ÊThou shalt take the ball to the rack - scored 12 in the first half. Senff is so quick when she gets the ball, she drives through the lane and gets defenders twisted every which way as she streaks in for layups. More often than not, embarrassed defenders guard her with their backs.
"When I was younger, I used to be really short, so I would always drive to the basket," Senff said, "because that's how you go to the free throw line.
"I just try to beat the defense down the floor after the lead pass."
She delivered a strong performance despite turning her ankle on another player's foot in the morning win over Clinton Prairie.
"It was swollen a little bit, but we had ice on it right away, and that stopped it," she said. "It was sore, but I played through it."
While Senff scored 22 and helped Triton jump all over Lapel early, both coaches agreed the key basket was delivered by Ganshorn.
Lapel, which fell behind 30-14, made its one run in the game to cut the lead to 30-20 with 15 seconds left before halftime. The Bulldogs looked to have life at halftime, but then Ganshorn delivered a buzzer-beating three-pointer to make it 33-20.
"She took the air out of them," Heeter said.
Said Brattain: "That was the backbreaker. Instead of going in at the half feeling like we'd done some good things, we're down 13."
Lapel finished the first half with 15 turnovers, several of which were unforced like travelling or double-dribbling and several of which were caused by Triton's triangle press.
In case the Bulldogs had any other ideas about making a run, the Trojans squelched their hopes early in the third quarter. The Trojans rattled off nine points in less than a minute to turn a 35-24 lead with 5:32 left in the quarter into a 44-24 lead with 4:36 left. Senff was in the middle of the run with four points.
The Bulldogs, which had only one scorer in double figures, Carpenter with 16, rolled over. With Triton leading in the 20s in the third quarter, even Lapel's coach seemed resigned to his team's fate, as Brattain watched the game sitting on the bench with chin resting in hand.
On the other bench, excited Triton players couldn't sit still. Just like Shelly Miller was at the beginning of the game, the Trojans are dancing. They're in the Class A state championship game, 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
"This is the team of destiny," she said. "We have such unity as a team. No one can break us."
TRITON 64, LAPEL 38
Triton (19-7) 17 16 19 12 - 64
Lapel (13-12) 8 12 8 10 - 38
Triton FG FT A S R Pts.
Senff (G) 10-17 2-3 2 2 2 22
Salyer (C) 4-8 2-2 0 3 9 10
Nifong (F) 4-10 0-0 0 1 4 10
Speicher (F) 3-8 2-3 2 3 4 8
Ganshorn (G) 3-8 0-0 4 1 5 7
Miller 1-2 0-0 0 0 3 2
A. Feldman 1-2 2-2 2 0 3 4
Salisbury 0-0 0-0 2 1 6 0
C. Feldman 0-2 0-0 0 0 1 0
Bates 0-0 1-2 0 0 2 1
Bell 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Kreiter 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Totals 26-57 9-12 12 11 39 64
Lapel FG FT A S R Pts.
Carpenter (F) 6-11 3-4 0 0 13 16
Huff (C) 4-12 1-4 3 0 5 9
Brattain (G) 1-5 0-0 1 2 1 3
Collins (G) 0-3 0-0 0 0 3 0
Jennings (F) 0-3 0-0 0 0 0 0
Hobbs 1-3 3-6 0 4 1 5
Wilson 0-3 4-5 0 0 3 4
Deley 0-5 1-2 1 1 0 1
Russell 0-1 0-2 1 0 0 0
Hults 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Hoover 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Totals 12-47 12-23 6 7 27 38
Three-point goals -ÊTriton 3-7 (Nifong 2-3, Ganshorn 1-2, Senff 0-1, Miller 0-1), Lapel 2-11 (Brattain 1-5, Carpenter 1-1, Jennings 0-1, Wilson 0-1, Hoover 0-1, Deley 0-2). Turnovers -ÊTriton 16, Lapel 21. Fouled out -ÊA. Feldman. Total fouls -ÊTriton 20, Lapel 13. [[In-content Ad]]