BOURBON — The Triton girls basketball team may have surprised some people with last season’s Class 1A Sectional 51 championship, but the No. 7 Lady Trojans won’t be sneaking up on anyone this time around. Defeating Oregon-Davis 62-48 in last year’s sectional championship, the Lady Trojans (15-5) snapped the Oregon-Davis Lady Bobcats’ string of four-straight titles, but both teams enter this year’s tournament in the state rankings, as O-D sits at No. 4. Along with the 17-4 Lady Bobcats, who host the sectional, another dangerous team is the 12-7 Argos Lady Dragons, but Triton coach Adam Heckaman sees this year’s tournament being wide open. “When you look at our sectional, I don’t think there’s a clear-cut favorite,” he said. “There’s four teams in it that could very easily win it. Then, you never know, because there’s always a team that surprises somebody. “You have, in our sectional, four teams in the top 20 of the Sagarin ratings,” he added. “That says a lot for the strength of our sectional and the strength of basketball in northern Indiana. We can’t go into it thinking any game’s going to be easy.” Triton did earn a first-round bye, and will take on the winner of Tuesday night’s opening-game between South Central (8-12) and Argos Friday 6:30 p.m. “We got a good draw, getting the bye,” Heckaman said. “That gives us about a week to prepare for who we may play Friday (in the semifinals). Argos and South Central will go at each other, and we’ll prepare for either one.” Triton’s played each potential opponent, defeating both in Bourbon, besting Argos 53-45 on Nov. 15, then taking down South Central 66-41 three days later. “Hopefully we can get through and have another shot at - somebody in the finals,” Heckaman said. “Whether it be Culver (9-12), O-D, Westville (5-15) or Marquette (1-18).” Most likely, the “somebody” Heckaman refers to is O-D, the team that had controlled the sectional for a four-year stretch and defeated Triton 48-45 in Hamlet on Jan. 4. “If anybody was going to bet on a team in our sectional, I think they’d bet on O-D,” he said. “That’s fine by us. That’s what we had last year, and we kind of snuck in there and caught them a little bit off guard. We’re not going to catch them off guard this year, we’re not going to catch anyone off guard.” This year’s edition of the Lady Trojans features a complete team, with no one individual rising up above the rest. Junior Shana Anderson leads the squad with 11.7 points a game, but she’s followed closely by sophomore Taylor Hatfield’s 9.6, freshman Kylie Mason’s 8.5 and senior Megan Howdeshell’s 6.7. “We have eight people up and down the bench that can get in and give us minutes, and can do the things we need them to do,” Heckaman said. “When we play like that, all-around, together and everybody steps up, we’re tough, we’re a good team. If we can keep that going into the sectional, I don’t think we’ll be an easy out. Then again, I don’t think anyone over there will be. So, it should be a good sectional.” Along with balanced scoring, assists per game are equally distributed, led by Anderson’s 2.1, sophomore Mallorie Jennings’ 1.9 and Hatfield’s 1.9, while Howdeshell is averaging 6.2 rebounds a contest and Anderson is at 5.4. With so much balance, and the experience of winning last year’s title, Heckaman believes his team will have a strong showing this week. “This year, people know what these girls have done and what they’ve worked for,” he said. “We’re going to go in there and see what we can do.”
