BOURBON – In a tale of two halves, Triton used a solid first half to build enough of a cushion to withstand LaVille’s fourth-quarter rally and hang on to win 35-30 in the first ever Hoosier North Athletic Conference girls basketball game for both schools. The game opened with Triton pressing the Lady Lancers, who turned the ball over on their first four possessions, and 11 times in the first half. Triton led 13-3 after the opening quarter before Lady Trojan sophomore Hannah Wanemacher hit three treys on the first four trips down the floor in the second quarter. By halftime, Triton led 24-7, and in the early stages of the third quarter the lead expanded to 20 points. From there, it was a matter of hanging on for the home team. Triton turned the ball over 17 times, hit just two shots from the field and made only 7 of 16 free throws after intermission. Meanwhile, LaVille suddenly improved its shooting, scoring as many points in the fourth quarter (15) as it had in the first three quarters. Triton head coach Adam Heckaman said the clock’s final countdown couldn’t finish fast enough for him. “It was like time was standing still. We kept coughing the ball up, and watching the score get closer and closer,” he said. “It’s definitely something we have to get better at. We started the game very well, but we didn’t finish the game so well, so we’ll keep working on that.” There was a stretch in the third and fourth quarters where Triton didn’t score for better than 10 minutes. Because of illness and injury, the Lady Trojans’ physical conditioning level isn’t where Heckaman would like it to be, and he said that may lead to the occasional dry spell. “I think we’re going to go through those stretches, unfortunately,” Heckaman said. “Hannah did a great job of starting us off. We added a little bit more aggressive defense this week. We tried to catch them off-guard a little bit, and I think we did. We let that defense feed our offense a little bit, and we really got going. Hannah is still battling her sickness, so we have to get her in and out, but she’s really provided a spark for us. “Scoring is not something we’ve been very good at so far, so when a team picks up the pressure like LaVille did in the second half, we get a little nervous with it. We have guards that aren’t real experienced on the floor, they didn’t play a lot of varsity last year, and they don’t think they can get to the basket so they stand out there and let them pressure them more. That’s something we need to get better at.” It had been a while since the Lady Trojans had a full compliment of players on the varsity roster available for a game. “This was the first game we’ve dressed every varsity kid since the John Glenn game, which was the first game of the year,” said Heckaman. ”It was good to see all of our kids out there, and I think our conditioning and to be able to pressure longer will come with having everybody out there.” Triton (2-7, 1-0 HNAC) continues conference play when it hosts Knox Saturday afternoon.
