AKRON - Going up against the area's leading scorer, the Triton High School girls basketball team had one objective - contain Tippecanoe Valley junior Staci Groom.
Concentrating on the 5-foot-6 shooting guard, Triton (4-4) was able to hold Groom to half of her scoring average in a 56-38 win over Valley (1-7) in Akron Wednesday.Entering the game averaging 21 points per game, Groom was held to 10 on 1-of-15 shooting, being hounded by Triton sophomore Shana Anderson, who used her length to disrupt Groom all night.
"Shana's a good athlete," Triton coach Adam Heckaman said. "She's long and we knew Groom, without being real tall, is a great offensive player. We really talked Monday and Tuesday that it would have to be a team effort. We couldn't count on one person to stop her. Shana did a great job on her, but without the rest of the team, Staci could have gone off easily for 30 points."
On top of guarding Groom, Anderson scored a game-high 14 points on 6-of-12 shooting, while also grabbing six rebounds.
All but two of Anderson's points came in the second half, when she was able to team up with junior Megan Howdeshell, who sat out most of the first half with two fouls.
"She's really working on her defensive decisions so she doesn't pick up those fouls," Heckaman said about Howdeshell. "In the third quarter, she really played smart. She gets herself in position to help, but she kind of shies away from taking the charge or moves her body a little bit and picks up those fouls."
Howdeshell had just one point and one rebound when she picked up her second foul, sending her to the bench in the first quarter. Once she returned in the third, Triton looked like a different team, using a 10-0 run to turn a 26-20 halftime lead into a 36-20 advantage.
"Basically, the game was won or lost in that third quarter," Valley coach Chris Kindig said. "We didn't play real well in the third quarter. That was basically it."
With Howdeshell on the floor, she and Anderson seemed to feed off each other, as Anderson went 5 of 7 from the floor en rout to a 12-point second half, while Howdeshell went 5 of 6 from the floor, scoring 12 points and dishing out four assists in the final 16 minutes of the game.
In all, Triton finished the game shooting 48 percent from the field (19-40), while Valley wasn't as fortunate, hitting 28 percent of its shots (10-36).
"That's been our bugga-boo," Kindig said. "For the year, we're shooting 25 or 26 percent. That's just isn't going to get it done. We had another night where we had over 20 turnovers. Triton's a good team, but you can't win ball games shooting less than 20 percent from the field and turning the ball over 20 times. It's not a good formula."
The game was also Triton senior Allison Thacker's first game back at Tippecanoe Valley since transferring after her sophomore season.
Playing aggressively in the first half, Thacker scored all 10 of her points in the opening half, and also led the Lady Trojans with seven rebounds.
"Allison's been consistent for us and that's what we need out of her," Heckaman said. "We need her to show up and be consistent, and she's doing that."
With Triton primed for its first winning season since it went 11-10 in 2004-05, the Triton Lady Trojans will look to get over .500 mark when they open their Northern State Conference schedule at home against 2-5 Bremen Friday. Valley is also in conference action Friday, hosting 2-6 North Miami in Three Rivers Conference play.
