Warsaw Defense Stymies Lady TrojansLike the series itself, Tuesday night’s girls basketball game against Triton was heavily lopsided in the Warsaw Lady Tigers’ favor.
In a non-conference clash at the Tiger Den, the hosts held Triton scoreless for much of the first half and cruised to a 46-14 win.
The Lady Tigers, who improved to 9-3 this season under first-year coach Lenny Krebs and to 25-3 in the overall series against Triton, led 6-0 after one quarter of play, 21-5 at halftime and 35-7 heading into the final frame.
The Lady Trojans, who scored their first points of the game on a Hannah Wanemacher bucket with 3:22 remaining in the second quarter, fell to 6-9 on the season.
“That’s been our talk all week, making sure we can maintain focus and intensity on the defensive end for 32 minutes,” said Krebs.
“If we’re gonna compete with the Homesteads, if we’re gonna compete with the Penns, if we’re gonna compete with all those schools we want to compete with, we have to maintain that defensive intensity for 32 minutes. The thing I’m most proud of is we kept it tonight. Even though the lead grew, if you watched us on the defensive end we were focused, we were intense, and that’s what I wanted to see.”
As a result of Warsaw’s stingy man-to-man defense, Triton had more turnovers (17) than points (14) and struggled through a 5-of-32 shooting performance.
The Lady Trojans were 1 of 13 from the field in the first half and scored just seven points in the first three quarters.
“That’s one thing we talked about going into this game ... we were probably gonna struggle a little offensively because of how good they are defensively,” said Triton coach Adam Heckaman. “They effect what you do, and when you have trouble putting the ball in the basket anyway, it becomes a little more difficult.
“We felt like defensively, though, we could play a pretty good game and hang around. I thought we did that early on, but I think just continuing to not be able to score kind of got us hanging our heads a little bit and feeling sorry ourselves.
“Warsaw took advantage of some things. In the first half, I think they had 13 offensive rebounds. That was how they got a lot of their points in the first half. I think eight of their 21 in the first half were second-chance points. If we could’ve cleaned that up a little bit, put a couple buckets in ourselves and got some confidence, I think the score would’ve been a little different.”
Warsaw outrebounded Triton 37-21, including a 17-7 advantage on the offensive glass.
Emma Bohnenkamper and Kacy Bragg, who scored seven and six points, respectively, grabbed 10 rebounds each in the win.
The Lady Tigers, who scored 17 second-chance points and 16 off turnovers, were led by Maddie Ryman’s 10 points. Halle Shipp chipped in with nine.
Nicole Sechrist paced Triton with six points and nine boards, while Delanie Groves and Wanemacher scored three points each and Jaela Faulkner two.
