BOURBON — The members of the Triton girls basketball team couldn’t have been happier with the Class 1A Sectional 51 draw. Taking place at Triton High School, the host Lady Trojans drew LaCrosse in the 8 p.m. first-round game Tuesday, with the winner moving on to face Argos, Friday at 8 p.m. LaCrosse enters the sectional with the worst record at 6-12 and Triton already handled Argos 53-25 back on Nov. 19 in Bourbon. “I feel like we had a good draw,” Triton coach Adam Heckaman said. “Honestly, I feel like having it on our home floor makes it a good draw no matter what.” On the top half of the bracket, top-ranked Oregon-Davis begins its quest for a third-straight title, and sixth in last seven years, against South Central, with the winner moving on to face No. 9 Culver at 6:30 p.m. Friday. The championship game will be at 7 p.m. Saturday. “When you look through our sectional, there are a lot of good teams,” Heckaman said. “We have to take it one game at a time and can’t look past anybody. We have to make sure we take care of business.” If they take care of business, they’re almost assured to face O-D in the title game, a team that has ended Triton’s season the past two years. Since defeating O-D in the 2011 sectional championship game, Triton is 0-6 against the Lady Bobcats and has lost by an average of 40.8 points the past three games, including Jan. 30’s 75-35 loss in Hamlet. Despite the lopsided scores, Heckaman feels his girls haven’t lost confidence. “We hadn’t practiced for five days leading up to that game (on Jan. 30), then had a game (against Manchester) the day before without practicing,” Heckaman said. “It just wasn’t a good setup for us, at all, to play a team of that caliber. Even with that, we were able to compete for about two quarters. We saw we are able to break the pressure some. “I think our girls do know that on any given night, anybody can beat anybody,” he added. “It’s going to take a good game by us, but I think the girls know they can do it.” Before worrying about Sectional 51’s dominant force, Triton first needs to concern itself with the tournament’s newest member in LaCrosse, which replaces Michigan City Marquette in the sectional. “I’ve got about three tapes on them to get some information,” Heckaman said. “They have some pretty decent scorers from the perimeter. They have a girl that can really score from distance and a post player that plays well for them. Those will be the two people we need to focus on.” What LaCrosse sees when it scouts Triton is another strong shooting guard with junior Kylie Mason and solid point guard in senior Taylor Hatfield. Mason is leading the Lady Trojans with 16.8 points per game, converting 44.9 percent of her three-point attempts, while also recording 2.6 steals and 2.1 assists per game. From her point guard position, Hatfield has averaged 11.4 points, 1.7 steals and 1.5 assists. Also for the Lady Trojans, senior Mallorie Jennings has been averaging 6.4 points and 5.1 rebounds, while junior Krystal Sellers is putting up 5.2 points, 4.6 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 2.2 steals per game. In the post, sophomore Lauren Hostrawser is averaging 4.2 points and 5.9 rebounds. Defeating teams by an average score of 53-44, Heckaman feels the points will come, but his girls will need to focus on other aspects of the game if they want to have success this week. “If we’re going to win the sectional, we really need to focus on our defense and taking care of the ball,” he said. “Offensively, we’re very capable of scoring points, but in games where we turn the ball over 13, 14 times we struggle. If we can handle the ball and handle pressure people bring at us, and we play well on the defensive end, I think we'll give ourselves a chance in every game.” Making it a little bit tough to work on those things has been the winter weather, as school cancellations haven’t limited the team to four games since Jan. 21, but have also made it hard to practice. “It’s been difficult,” Heckaman said. “When we’re not in school, generally we’re not allowed to practice, depending on what happens with the weather throughout the day. Pretty much every time this year, we have not been able to practice (when school’s been cancelled). Keeping the consistency has been tough, but the girls prepare for that and I have some girls who look to get somewhere to play. There’s a lot of girls that live out in the country that go out into heated barns to shoot. I feel like they’re at least being active.”
