Triton endured a nearly eight-minute scoring drought in the first half, then Warsaw’s Lady Tigers turned up the defensive intensity in the second half to turn a relatively close game into a 44-18 blowout Tuesday night in the Tiger Den. Hannah Wanemacher, the Lady Trojans’ leading scorer, hit a three on the game’s first possession, but Triton then turned the ball over on its next six possessions. Wanemacher hit another trey to stop a 14-0 second quarter run and end the first scoring drought. But the first half was like a rain forest compared to the second half for the visitors. Wanemacher hit two free throws for the only Triton points in the third period, and Charlotte Morris hit a layup with seven seconds left for the Lady Trojans’ only field goal in the second half and only points in the final quarter. Warsaw head coach Michelle Harter said she was looking for greater effort from her team to stop Wanemacher after intermission, and not let Triton sneak back in to the game. “We challenged the girls at halftime that I didn’t want Wanemacher to get off a three in the second half, and that we needed to know where she was and pick up the intensity,” she said. “So the girls came out, gave us something to focus on, challenged us a little bit and didn’t allow (Wanemacher) to get open shots. “We also talked about not allowing easy dribble penetration into the paint. In the first half we allowed the penetration and they kicked out to Wanemacher, and that’s when she hit a couple of threes off of us. I thought the girls did a good job of focusing, being intense, hands up and getting deflections that helped create some offense for us.” The home team enjoyed one of its better shooting efforts this season, hitting 16 of 32 attempts from the field overall, including five three-pointers. “I thought the girls ran our offense very well tonight,” Harter said. “They were very patient, and we were cutting at the right time and making good passes for the most part.” In spite of turning the ball over 12 times in each half, Triton head coach Adam Heckaman felt like his team wasn’t out of the game at halftime. “We played a really good first half. We were patient and worked the ball. We turned it over seven or eight times in the first quarter, but six of those were the first few minutes,” he said. “We overcame a bad start and hung around. “The second half we came out, made a couple of quick mistakes and got down on ourselves, and it kind of snowballed. We were making some of the same mistakes over and over again.” Heckaman is looking for some of the younger players to develop the confidence needed for Triton to succeed long term. “We need kids to start looking a little more to the basket,” he said. “I think we’re a little passive; once we get down, the girls start to look to each other and hope somebody else does something. Hannah looks to score, (Sechrist) looks to score, we get Jaela (Meister) out there part of the time but she’s still hurt, so she’s just not herself out there. “We’re trying to find those other scorers, and trying to get the kids to understand that if you’re going to play that hard defensively, then you’ve got to be strong with the ball and look to score. And we didn’t do that in the second half; we turned it over too much.” Wanemacher finished with eight points to lead the Lady Trojans. Triton fell to 5-10 overall and will be off until Jan. 6 when it travels to Hamlet for a matchup with Class 2A No. 2 Oregon-Davis, a team that beat Warsaw by 20 earlier this month. Dayton Groninger had a game-high 16 points for the Lady Tigers, and Kacy Bragg had 10. Warsaw improved to 3-10 and will host Perry Meridian at 10 a.m. Dec. 29 in the semifinal of the TCU Lady Tiger Tournament.
