Beginning the season with a new coach, new players and a new wing of the school, the Tippecanoe Valley girls basketball team tipped off hoops season in Kosciusko County with a home game against last year’s state runner up Norwell. It was the visitors that started strong and never looked back, as the Lady Knights left town with a 72-40 victory.
Coaching her first game at her alma mater, Valley head coach Rebekah Parker was not pleased with the early effort she was seeing out of her team, calling the first timeout of the contest trailing 5-2 just over a minute into the game. Her players responded well, scoring the next three points to tie things up.
Things didn’t stay that way for long though, as some suffocating defense being played by the visitors was a catalyst for a 6-0 run. The Lady Knights were swarming the basketball, causing more than a few turnovers that turned into easy buckets.
Norwell’s Vanessa Rosswurm proved to be tough to deal with in the early going, scoring nine of her team’s first 15 points of the night and scoring them from all over the court. On the other side, the Lady Vikings were getting their points from a variety of players, with four players combining for eleven points.
“You like to look at the positives but when you get beat by 32 there’s not a lot of them,” Parker said. “But these kids work hard and it's a process. They had a lot thrown at them tonight and they will get better.”
While points were hard to come by for Valley in the opening quarter, the visitors had no such issues. The biggest discrepancy between the two sides came from deep, as the Lady Knights connected on three shots from distance while the home side missed its only two attempts. After a quarter, Norwell was up 20-11.
Senior Carlee Snyder began the second quarter as she did the first for the Lady Vikings, by scoring the first points of the period. Followed up by a three from Hadley Wise, Valley was able to cut the deficit to six with six minutes to go in the half.

    After stealing the ball, Hadley Wise heads upcourt to the Valley basket...Nieter

That’s as close as they would get, as once again, the Lady Knights were ready to respond. Another 6-0 run by the visitors grew the lead up to double digits before it was finally temporarily halted by a layup from Valley’s Lucy Hayden. It didn’t do much in terms of help though, as two more quick threes by Norwell made it a 16-point game with two minutes to go until halftime.
A last-minute bucket by Dalynne Bussard and a pair of free throws made it a 12-point game with the Lady Knights leading 36-24 at halftime. Bussard and Hayden with the leading scorers for the Lady Vikings after 16 minutes at six apiece.
Another surge by Norwell to begin the third quarter expanded on the advantage once again. Turnovers killed Valley during this stretch, as the home team could barely hold onto the ball long enough to get a shot up. Instead, it was the visitors getting easy buckets in transition and off of the offensive glass to grow the lead to 43-26 with five minutes to go in the period.“We have to seize the moments a little better. I don’t think they understand yet that there are big moments in these games. We talked about coming out strong in the first three minutes out of halftime and we fell short,” Parker said. “If we could have come out strong, scored a few points and made it an eight-point game, things could turn out a lot different.”
The drought continued for the home team after a quick break in the action, and soon, Valley trailed by more than 20. Finally, a free throw by Gaby Gonzalez with just a little over two minutes to go in the quarter gave Valley its opening points since the first minute of the half.
That ended up being the team’s last point in the third, and after being outscored 20-3 over the previous eight minutes, the Lady Vikings now trailed by 29.
“They’re a really good team, all the credit goes to them,” Parker said. “They put us in some uncomfortable positions. We were prepared to be in those positions but they handled us really well.”
The home side eclipsed its scoring total of the third just three minutes into the fourth on a long jump shot by Wise. While things looked a bit better for Valley with things winding down in the contest, the result had been determined at this point. The Lady Vikings never stopped fighting though, as Norwell had multiple opportunities to push the lead to 35 and initiate the running clock, but each time, the home defense stood strong and answered with a bucket to eliminate that threat.
Hayden had a great fourth quarter scoring the ball, becoming the only Valley player to reach double digits, finishing with 13.
The Lady Vikings (0-1) will play Thursday night at Northwestern for the team’s first road game of the season.