Photo by Rudy Marquez
LAKEVILLE – In a game where the defense had a stranglehold, it was Triton’s Lady Trojans that were able to put together enough offense in the fourth quarter to come away with a come from behind 31-29 win and punch their ticket for the final game in the girls TCU Bi-County at LaVille High School.
While the Lady Trojans are known for their patience and toughness on the defensive side of the ball it was a swarming attack, sometimes in the full court by Glenn that had Triton reeling in the first half.
Glenn forced 20 first-half turnovers putting the Lady Trojans on their heels but were unable to throw a knock out blow early as Triton weathered the Falcon storm.
“When you turn it over 20 times in the first half you don’t really expect to be in it but our girls buy into defense,” said Triton coach Adam Heckaman. “That will hold you in it and that is what happened tonight.”
“We turned them over 20 times in the first half and got 10 points out of it,” said Glenn coach Ted Hayden. “That’s .5 return on your investment and that is not a good place to be.”
Neither team could get anything going in the first half with the Lady Falcons able to take a 10-8 lead into the locker room after the first 16 minutes.
The second half saw Glenn able to stretch the lead a bit in the third quarter to 19-14, but Triton was able to cut down on the turnovers and start looking to take advantage of Abby Viers and Lexia Hostrawser on the inside.
“We talked about that at the beginning but we just couldn’t handle the ball long enough to look in there,” said Heckaman. “We did a better job of settling down in the second half and we were able to look in there and Abby (Viers) was able to finish. When we didn’t Lexia (Hostrawser) and Abby did a good job of crashing the boards. That was big for us tonight.”
Compared to the rest of the game the fourth quarter was an offensive explosion.
Triton clawed back to a tie at 21 at the 5:23 mark in the final frame helped by Emma Hepler off the bench. Hepler hit a game tying three and then went on to net seven points all in the fourth quarter.
“Emma was huge off the bench,” said Heckaman. “She came in and sparked us diving on the floor, gave us some energy and hit some big shots for us. She did what we needed her to do and it was good to see that.”
Meanwhile the shooting that had been so hot for the Falcons in a win over Oregon-Davis turned ice cold.
“They packed it in to make us shoot from outside and challenge our shots,” said Hayden. “We hit 14 threes against OD and tonight we don’t hit a three. We weren’t ready to shoot the ball. I don’t know why we weren’t pulling the trigger and we were hesitating. That cost us the game in the long run and not turning turnovers into points.”
Triton moves to 10-11 on the year and will face Bremen on Saturday night in the finals. Glenn is now 8-13 and will take on New Prairie on Feb. 1.
•TRITON 31, GLENN 29
At LaVille
Triton 6 8 14 31
Glenn 4 10 19 29
Triton (31) — Yates 1 0-4 2, Soriano 0 0-0 0, Bules 0 2-2 2, Hepler 2 2-4 7, Viers 3 2-4 8, Hostrawser 3 3-3 9, Atkins 0 0-0 0. Totals 10 9-17 31
Glenn (29) — Romer 2 0-0 4, Miller 0 0-0 0, Wilk 3 1-3 7, Machnic 0 2-2 2, Lang 5 2-7 12, Romer 0 2-2 2, Yelaska 0 2-2 2. Totals 10 9-16 29.
