PLYMOUTH – It was exactly the type of game that Triton’s Lady Trojans wanted but Plymouth out dueled them in a 38-22 win in the Lady Pilgrims first home game of the season.
“Adam does a heck of a job. They came in and I thought his kids got good shots in the first half,” said Plymouth head coach Dave Duncan. “Their game plan coming in was they wanted a 20 possession game and they did what they had to do. Our kids kept doing what they had to do and gapped it a little bit.”
“We gave ourselves a chance to play defense,” said Triton head coach Adam Heckaman. “That’s all we worked on last night. Get across half court and allow us to play some offense and allow us to play some defense and see where we can get to and we took that step forward tonight. It was really good to see that.”
The end of the first quarter was exactly what the Lady Trojans wanted to see with Plymouth holding just a two point lead at 9-7.
It was the turnover column that was the most glaring stat at the end of the first half – 10 for Triton and just five for the Lady Pilgrims – but both coaches felt that wasn’t the biggest factor.
“It’s been a problem. But most of our empty possessions didn’t result in a direct layup which helped out a lot tonight,” said Heckaman. “I think we had five in a row tonight where we were trying to lob it into our post players against Plymouth’s six-foot girls, but those turnovers can at least allow us to get back and play defense and allow us to hang around.”
“We didn’t score off those turnovers,” said Duncan. “We forced them but I didn’t feel like we took them and put it into transition for us. Obviously, those are things you want to do as the season progresses.”
“We talked about some of the shots that we took,” said Duncan. “We could have gotten those same shots after two more passes. I felt we rushed those shots and that’s not us. I was a little disappointed with our ball movement early on but I thought as the game went on Lindsay (Janus) did a good job of breaking their defense down and finding our big kids underneath.”
“There were some opportunities early in the game where we put the ball on the floor against four people instead of kicking it out,” said Duncan. “Those are little things that we talked about and we’ll get better.”
Plymouth had a very balanced night in all columns. Clare Sheedy led the Lady Pilgrims in scoring with 10 and Alaina Clady had seven. Sydni Weir grabbed seven rebounds, Claire Tanner and Clady had three steals each.
For Triton freshman, Kinsey Atkins had eight points and Whytnie Miller and Abbey Viers had five rebounds.
“I was much happier tonight than I was Tuesday night (against Bremen)” said Heckaman. “We played better tonight. Shots will start coming as we get more repitition. If we can keep moving ahead without killing ourselves we have a chance to improve and be alright by the end of the year.”
Plymouth is now 4-1 on the year, Triton is 1-5.
*PLYMOUTH 38, TRITON 22
at Plymouth
Plymouth 9 18 30 38
Triton 7 7 14 22
Plymouth (38) – Tanner 1 0-0 3, Janus 3 0-0 6, Cook 0 0-0 0, Flynn 3 0-0 6, Dejarnett 0 0-0 0, Sheedy 4 2-3 10, Clady 1 5-7 7, Weir 1 1-2 4, Delp 0 2-2 4. Totals 13 10-14 38.
Triton (22) – yATES 1 0-0 2, mILLER 0 1-2 1, Ab. Viers 0 0-2 0, Hostrawser 2 0-0 4, Atkins 2 2-2 8, Al. Viers 1 2-2 4. Totals 7 5-8 22.
3 Pt. FG – Plymouth 2 (Tanner, Weir), Triton 3 (Atkins 2).
Rebounds – Plymouth 25 (Weir 7), Triton 20 (Miller, Ab. Viers 5)
Steals – Plymouth 10 (Tanner, Clady 3), Triton 7 (Atkins 3).
Turnovers – Plymouth 10, Triton 15.
