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KOUTS - Whether it was disrespect, or just an honest mistake, the program at Wednesday's Kouts 1A girls basketball regional had the names of Triton seniors Betsy Salyer and Brandie Ganshorn misspelled.
After No. 1 Triton, the defending state champion, cruised to a 71-47 win over the sixth-ranked Fillies, Kouts' players and fans will want to forget about the Trojans all together.
Salyer, Triton's 5-foot-10 starting center, scored 18 points and pulled down 16 rebounds in the 24-point win.
"She had a good game, Betsy came ready to play," Triton coach Mark Heeter said. "We scrimmaged a little bit last night (Tuesday), and it was not a good scrimmage, it left a bad taste in our mouth."
Triton improves to 20-3 overall and will host Saturday's semistate, while Kouts finishes its season at 18-7.
Heeter spoke of how Triton's scrimmage left a bad taste in his and his players' mouth. Last night they made up for it in winning their second consecutive regional title, dismantling Kouts on its home floor and leaving with a smile.
Two years ago Kouts topped Triton in the regional championship on a last second tip-in. The past two meetings have been anything but close.
"Last year we talked about the revenge thing," Heeter said. "We beat them pretty bad last year, but we wanted to come out and set the tempo. We can score, but I thought we played pretty good defense."
Triton jumped out to a quick 10-0 lead and led 14-4 after the first quarter. Kouts didn't score its first point of the game until the 1:58 mark of the first quarter when junior Jennifer Brown hit the second of two free throws.
A basket by Salyer with 6:16 remaining in the second stanza gave Triton a 22-4 lead. As Heeter said, his team can put points on the board. He was also right about his team being able to play defense.
Kouts senior Erica Martin entered last night's game averaging 24 points per game. Last night, draped by Triton defenders, she missed her first six shots. She finished the game with 19 points, scoring 15 through the second and third quarters, but they didn't come easy.
"They're a good team we just took them out of their game," Heeter said of Kouts. "We wanted to limit their girls to just one shot and we did that."
In the early going this was the story of the game - Triton would score, and if Kouts was able to get a shot off it was a miss and Triton got the rebound.
For the game, the Trojans outrebounded the Fillies 39-20.
Triton blitzed Kouts again in the second quarter and led 35-15 at halftime.
"I didn't expect it to be this easy," Heeter said. "The girls were focused, that fast start really helped us."
By halftime Sayler had scored eight of her 18 points pulled down 10 of her 16 rebounds. Sophomore Ashli Senff scored 18 points and pulled down eight boards for Triton, while Amber Feldman added 12 points and five rebounds.
In her final prep game, Martin scored a game-high 19 points and was the only Kouts player in double figures. Brown added eight, while Jennifer Howard and Amanda Long scored seven and six, respectively.
Kouts attempted to make a game of it in the second half, but a 20-point halftime deficit was too much to overcome.
Once Kouts figured out how to get a shot off, they went to the three-pointer. It didn't matter, as the Fillies finished the game 4 of 19 from beyond the arc.
NO. 1 TRITON 71
NO. 6 KOUTS 47
Triton (20-3) 14 21 24 12 - 71
Kouts (18-7) 4 11 18 14 - 47
Triton FG FT R S Pts.
Senff (G) 6-10 6-10 8 2 18
Speicher (F) 4-7 0-0 3 1 8
A. Feldman (F) 6-9 0-0 5 0 12
Ganshorn (G) 2-5 0-0 2 1 5
Salyer (C) 7-14 4-6 16 2 18
Kreiter 0-0 0-0 1 0 0
Miller 1-1 0-0 2 0 2
Salisbury 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
C. Feldman 0-1 0-0 1 0 0
Westafer 1-5 2-2 0 1 4
Bell 2-4 0-0 1 0 4
Bates 0-1 0-0 0 0 0
Totals 29-57 12-18 39 7 71
Kouts FG FT R S Pts.
Amor (G) 0-10 1-2 3 1 1
E. Martin (G) 7-18 2-2 3 0 19
Long (F) 1-1 4-8 4 0 6
Pendowski (F) 0-2 0-0 3 0 0
Brown (C) 3-5 2-3 0 1 8
G. Martin 1-2 0-0 0 0 2
Lika 0-1 0-0 0 0 0
Kristoff 0-1 0-0 2 0 0
D. Howard 1-3 2-2 1 0 4
J. Howard 3-5 0-0 4 0 7
Totals 16-48 11-17 20 2 47
Three-point goals - Triton 1-4 (Ganshorn 1-1, Westafer 0-2, Senff 0-1), Kouts 4-19 (E. Martin 3-6, J. Howard 1-2, Amor 0-8, D. Howard 0-1, Pendowski 0-1, G. Martin 0-1). Turnovers - Triton 10, Kouts 17. Fouls - Triton 15, Kouts 13. Fouled out - none.
