UNION CITY – The Mississinawa Valley Lady Blackhawks jumped out to a 10-3 lead at 3:36 in the opening period over the visiting Troy Christian Lady Eagles.
“It looked good to have excellent ball movement,” said Mississinawa Valley coach Gwen Bergman. “It was quick, it was fast, they got those open passes and then we stopped.”
The Lady Hawks’ Taylor Stachler nailed a 3-pointer to give the home team a 3-0 lead while adding a second triple and two field goals to score MV’s opening 10 points on the night.
A quick Troy Christian timeout had Lady Eagles battling back to tie the score at 10-10 with 2:32 showing on the first quarter clock and push their lead to 20-10 with a 17-0 scoring run to close out first period play.
The Lady Eagles continued its strong defensive play to take the second quarter by a 13-1 score sending the teams to the break with Troy Christian leading 33-11.
Period No. 3 went to Troy Christian 16-6 giving the visitors a 49-17 advantage heading to the final period of play.
“They are tall, they are long and they shoot the ball well,” Coach Bergman said of Troy Christian. They have a good shooting percentage from the 3-point line – from anywhere they do a great job of shooting the ball and that showed here tonight as well.”
Mississinawa shots started to fall in the final quarter with the Lady Blackhawks outscoring Troy Christian 14-8 with balanced scoring coming by way of four Kya Lavy points, a Leah Scholl 3-pointer, a field goal and free throw from Stachler and a Mattie Hiestand 2-point goal.
“They kept trying, they kept fighting,” Bergman said of the Lady Hawks fourth quarter play. “I am super proud of this team for always keeping fighting and they always keep trying – and they don’t give up.”
Troy’s 6’2” Sarah Earhart led all scorers with a game high 14-points. Six Lady Hawks got in the scoring column led by 13 Stachler points.
“All the girls did great,” Coach Bergman stated. “They did a great job in our two-three zone, they moved, they talked and that is a great improvement. I like to see that out of everybody. It was a team effort.”
“I like to see the smiles on the court and I like to see them enjoying playing the game,” Bergman concluded.
BOXSCORE:
TROY CHRISTIAN 57, MISSISSINAWA VALLEY 31
TROY CHRISTIAN – S. Earhart 14, M. Baker 8, M. Taylor 8, E. Schenk 8, C. Baker 7, S. Johnson 6, S. Taylor 5, L. Waltz 1 – TOTALS 16 10-15 5 57
MISSISSINAWA VALLEY – T. Stachler 13, K. Lavy 6, L. Scholl 4, M. Hiestand 4, M. Townsend 2, K. Stachler 2 – TOTALS 10 2-7 3 31
3-POINTERS
Troy Christian – 5 (S. Earhart 2, C. Baker 1, M. Taylor 1, E. Schenk 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS:
20-13-16-08 57 Troy Christian
10-01-06-14 31 Mississinawa Valley