Triton Girls Basketball: Plymouth Shoots Down Trojans, 56-29
PLYMOUTH — Triton’s bread and butter defenses so far this season have been zones. Unfortunately for the Lady Trojans, their halfcourt scheme didn’t match up particularly well versus host Plymouth Thursday night.
The Pilgrims made it rain from outside with 14 3s at a better than 63 percent conversion rate on the way to season-high points production, and 25 Triton turnovers didn’t help matters much as the Trojans suffered a lopsided, 56-29 loss in Plymouth.
“They have a lot of weapons. We were going to go ahead and try our zone to start with. They lit it up, so we went ahead and went man-to-man,” explained Triton coach Adam Heckaman.
“As far as man-to-man, we haven’t run it a lot. I thought the girls did a good job in the second quarter of finding people, cutting off penetration. I think we just wore down a little bit there in the third and fourth, and they just started hitting. We gave them any look, they found it, and they knocked it down. Some of them weren’t even close to the 3-point line, either, so that makes it even a little bit tougher.”
Plymouth (3-2) rattled off 11 unanswered points to start the game, a run that saw Alli Andrews and Halle Reichard each knock down triples as part of a 5-of-7 3-point shooting effort by the Pilgrims in the first period. The Trojans (2-3) answered that initial run with an 8-0 spurt of their own to cut Plymouth’s advantage to three, but the home team closed out the quarter with another two 3s to push its advantage out to 17-8 at the first quarter break.
Triton did a better job contesting the perimeter out of its man-to-man defense in the second stanza, and neither team had scored in the quarter before Nicole Sechrist split a pair of free throws at the 1:40 mark. The Trojans trailed by a manageable 22-12 at halftime and briefly whittled that deficit down to eight points with Hannah Wanemacher’s pull-up along the baseline at the five-minute stop of the third. But the Pilgrims again got hot from outside with four straight 3s from Andrews and Reichard — the latter’s transition wing triple on an Andrews steal and assist ballooning the Pilgrims’ advantage out to 20 points at 36-16 with 3:09 left in the third — and Triton was never really in it again.
All told, five different Plymouth shooters knocked down 3s as the Pilgrims went 14 of 22 from past the arc, including a combined 10 of 15 treys from Reichard and Andrews on their way to 18 and 12 points, respectively. Many of those triples came in transition as the visitors surrendered 25 turnovers, and the Pilgrims punished those miscues with 29 points.
“They had 13 points off of turnovers in the first half, and we said if we’re going to have a chance in this game, we can’t give them the ball to score without us being able to play defense. And that’s essentially what it was,” said Heckaman. “Most of our turnovers led to wide open shots for them — either a layup or a quick kick out for 3 because we couldn’t get back and find them. They capitalized, and we just kept doing it. We kept trying to force the ball where it couldn’t fit and weren’t strong with it, and until we figure out how to do that, we’re probably going to keep seeing the same result.”
While Reichard and Andrews combined for 30, Wanemacher led Triton offensively with 15 points on 4-of-9 shooting from the floor and a perfect 5-of-5 conversions from the foul line, although the Trojans didn’t get much offensive production from anyone else Thursday. Sechrist scored just three points but finished with a game-high 10 rebounds to lead her team to a 25-15 advantage off the glass, and she added a pair of blocked shots, a steal and an assist in the loss.
But the senior duo also combined to give up 11 turnovers at Plymouth, and Heckaman says he needs more from them in that department.
“Hannah can score. We know that, and we need her out there scoring. Nikki we need out there because she can do a lot of things. She can rebound; she’s a little bit of a calming presence there from the perimeter because we’re struggling at that area. She can at least see over things,” he said. “But it’s like I told those two — they’re our leaders. We honestly need them to step up more. We need them to step up and keep us composed and handle the ball a little bit better. If they start doing that in addition to what they’re doing, we’re going to get better, and we’re going to win games.”
Freshman Jaela Faulkner didn’t light up the stat sheet, but she gave the Trojans a spark off the bench in the second half with her hustle over roughly eight and a half minutes of play.
“She’s going to go after everything. She’s not going to shy away from anything. I hope that attitude starts to catch a little bit with some of the other girls,” Heckaman said. “She’s on the floor probably more times than anybody else was the whole game, and she was only in there for two quarters.”
While Plymouth improved to 3-2 with its first back-to-back wins of the season, the Trojans fell short of their first consecutive wins after a narrow 23-20 win over Bremen Tuesday. The Trojans continue a three-game road stretch opposite Northern Lakes Conference opponents at Wawasee Saturday night before traveling to NorthWood next Tuesday.
“We know with our schedule up front, it’s going to expose our weaknesses quick, and we’d better get better at those areas quick or we’re going to pile up some losses. That’s where we’re at right now,” said Heckaman. “We’re not getting better at handling the ball, we’re not getting better at making decisions, and when you play teams like Plymouth, Wawasee, NorthWood, they’re going to expose that. It’ll be a quick turnaround, play again on Saturday night. We’re going to go to work tomorrow, watch some film and get into practice and really work on trying to handle the ball against pressure.”
The junior varsity Trojans also took one on the chin with a 52-12 loss to Plymouth. Abbey Viers scored six to lead Triton’s JV. Sydni Weir scored 14, Erin Renneker scored 12, and Lindsey Sams finished with 10 for the JV Pilgrims.