Lady Patriots slide past Emmanuel Christian
By George Starks

BROOKVILLE- For the second year in a row, the Tri-Village Lady Patriots faced Emmanuel Christian in the opening round of the OHSAA sectional tournament. For the second year in a row, the results were the same: a Tri-Village victory.

It was a year ago, the Patriots dropped a 107-13 win over the Lions, in a game that featured Teha Richards scoring 40 points and eclipsing 1,000 in her career. Thursday, the Patriots walked away with a 70-23 victory to move into second round action next Tuesday.

Tri-Village got a slow start on both ends of the court as the Lions went up 5-0 early, much to the dismay of head coach Brad Gray.

Enter the Patriots freshman, Allie Downing, Rachel Miller and Danika Mann. When it was time to get the heat turned up, the Patriot freshman did. Downing finished the game with 10, Mann with eight and Miller seven.

“I thought when the kids came off the bench, especially early in the game, gave us a pretty good spark,” said Gray. “Our first group didn’t come out ready to play tonight. Give Emmanuel Christian some credit. They got us down early before we decided to play some basketball. I give a lot of credit to my three freshmen. They came in the first half and really sparked us.”

At that point, the Patriots started marching to the beat of a different drummer and the Lions didn’t much care for the different tune. Down 6-5, the Patriots, on the shoulders of the three freshmen, went on a 10-0 run to close out the first frame, up 15-6.

The second quarter proved to be the style of ball Gray wanted to see.

The Patriots defense held the Lions, 5-17, to a measly four points while tallying 21 points on offense to take control, 36-10, at the break. The Pats closed out the half on a 31-5 run.

The Patriots opened up the third frame right where they left off at the break; holding a massive 53-13 lead. Heather Ferris led all scorers with 11 points as all but one Patriot scored, that being sophomore Shelby Dowler.

“We almost got everyone in the scoring column tonight,” said Gray. “Megan Brandon got her first varsity action of the year tonight and got two buckets. It’s good to see everybody get involved in games like this.”

With the victory, the Patriots will play next Tuesday and will get the winner of the Franklin Monroe/Bethel game to be played today at 10:30 at Brookville.