BOURBON — Triton's guard play was able to outplay Bethany Christian's taller post players Monday in Bourbon, helping the Lady Trojans get a 38-32 girls basketball victory and improve to 5-0. Squaring off with the Lady Bruin's (2-3) post presence of six-foot players junior Natalie Thorn and sophomore Hannah Hochstetler, the Class 1A No. 9 Lady Trojans used a pressure defense to force 27 turnovers, denying entry passes into the two girls. "Their strength is the bigs," Triton head coach Adam Heckaman said. "When you have a six-foot player and a 6-1 player down there, that's probably going to be your strength, and it was. We let them get it in there too much in the first half. We wanted to speed the game up and get going more at our pace. " With so much size in the lane, Triton struggled to shoot all night, making just 15 of 55 shots (27 percent), but junior Shana Anderson helped things by using her length at the top of the Lady Trojans' 1-3-1 zone defense. Posting five steals herself, while also just being a general disturbance, Anderson's defense led to some breakaway baskets, as she scored a game-high 16 points to go with three blocked shots and four assists. "With Shana up there, she has a lot of length and she can cause some problems," Heckaman said. In all, Triton had 16 steals, with the most important two coming in the opening stages of the fourth quarter. Knotted at 25-25, Triton freshman Kylie Mason put her team in front with a bucket, before Anderson got a steal and took it in for a bucket with 6:42 remaining in the game. Using it's full-court press, Triton regained possession when Mason got a steal, and was later fouled, making one of two free throws, increasing the lead to 30-25 with 6:33 remaining. "We picked our defense up. We forced them into some things they didn't want to do. We were able to get those turnovers, and that led to our offense. Triton built its lead to 32-25 when senior Megan Howdeshell converted a basket with 4:57 left, but instead of icing the game away, the young Lady Trojans found themselves taking early three-pointers and turning the ball over, allowing the Lady Bruins to creep within 34-32 with just over a minute to go. "We're still learning that when it's not going from the outside, we have to look for easier buckets and kill a little more time with our offense," Heckaman said. "We didn't do that particularly well tonight. It's something we need to work real hard on these next few days." Despite a few miscues, Anderson and sophomore Taylor Hatfield each made two free throws in the final 24 seconds, sealing the win and getting Triton off to its best start since the program began 5-0 back in 2002. Along with Anderson's production, sophomore Mallorie Jennings had eight points and Hatfield had a four-steal, six-rebound game. For Bethany, senior Gina Gautsche, senior Malaina Weldy and Hochstetler each had eight points, while Thorn posted 16 rebounds to help the Lady Bruins outrebound Triton 42-26. "It was a win and we'll take a win," Heckaman said. "It wasn't pretty, but we did what we needed to defensively to close it out. But we have to go to work to get ready for a pretty big stretch of games." Triton opens its Northern State Conference season Saturday at Knox before returning home to take on the Tippecanoe Valley Lady Vikings on Dec. 7.
