Just one night after suffering a double-digit loss to Northridge, the Tippecanoe Valley girls basketball team was intent on making sure it didn’t drop two in a row. The Lady Vikings did just that, going ahead big early and staying there in the team’s 61-15 win over Knox at home on Thursday evening.
The game started routinely enough, with both sides spending the opening minute feeling each other out, with not many points being put up to show for it. The Lady Vikings would eventually get on the board after a pair of steals and scores by Gaby Gonzalez made it a 4-0 game and forced Knox to call timeout.
Following the break in action is when things began to get out of hand. Just a minute later, Valley had extended its lead to 11-0. On a night where just about everything was working for the home side, the highlight was the devastating press the Lady Vikings were putting on. It would take a while before the Lady Redskins would figure out how to break it, and during that time, Valley took full advantage, going up 13-0 to start the game.
“I really like the way we started this game,” Valley head coach Chris Kindig said. “It was great to get those easy buckets in transition to really put the pressure on them.”
Along with Gonzalez, Ava Egolf was one of the offensive leaders in the game, scoring her tenth point of the contest before the first quarter came to an end. It was a team effort for Valley, which could not be stopped as the home side scored 27 points in the first quarter and led by 23 going into the second.
The next eight minutes featured more of the same, with Tippy Valley continuing to add on to their advantage. With the game already in blowout territory, this quarter featured quite a few bench players getting some meaningful minutes for the Lady Vikings. One of these players was forward Lucy Hayden, who made her mark on the game with some tough defense and rebounding.

    Tippecanoe Valley sophomore Lucy Hayden battles under the basket during Thursday night's home game against Knox. Photo by Gary Nieter

“It was good to get ahead early and kind of relax the rest of the way. After the game we had last night it was good to see the girls having fun on the bench,” Kindig said.
It wouldn’t be long until the lead grew over 30 points as the Lady Vikings continued to roll. The visitors were unable to do much of anything on the offensive end, but the over aggressiveness of Valley’s defense would allow Knox to get some points back at the free throw line. It wouldn’t mean much though, as at halftime, the Lady Vikings were up by 34, putting the tram a point away from turning the majority of the second half into a running-clock scenario.
Just 30 seconds into the third, Kelsey Cox would do just that, hitting a turnaround jumper to extend the lead to 36. A few minutes later, Chesnee Miller would sink a long jumper and the Lady Vikings would go up by 40. Despite the large lead, the Lady Vikings opted to leave a majority of their starters in the game at this point as the lead continued growing. Egolf would reach the 20-point mark with a few minutes left in the period.
After a quick quarter, the lead had grown to 42 and nine of the 12 players listed on the Valley roster had scored at least one point. Perhaps even more impressively, eight players had recorded a steal. After spending a majority of the third period still in attack mode, the Lady Viking offense operated much more methodically in the fourth. That didn’t mean Tippy Valley stopped trying to score though, as after a few minutes, the home side’s lead was extended to an astonishing 50 points.
By this point, the starters were long gone and the lead didn’t get much larger than that. Freshman Hadley Wise, who splits time between varsity and JV, made the most of her extended minutes, scoring six points and grabbing three steals.
Egolf led all scorers with 21 points while grabbing seven rebounds. Gonzalez scored nine while Wise and Dalynne Bussard both added six. Miller scored five while Hayden poured in three to go with nine rebounds.
The Lady Vikings (14-4) are back at home next Saturday evening for a game against Fort Wayne Northrop.
“I like the direction we’re heading in but we still have a lot of work to do before February,” Kindig said.