Brownstown Central’s girls opened up a 13-5 advantage at the end of the first quarter and led the rest of the way to defeat Trinity Lutheran 51-38 Tuesday night in the Bollinger Athletic Complex.
“For the most part I thought we played well, but there were things we were a little hesitant on, attacking the basket and help-side defense,”
Braves coach Karla Rieckers said. “They had two bigs inside, and sometimes our help-side defense didn’t get where it needed to be.”
The Braves went on a 7-0 run early in the first quarter to open up the 13-5 lead. Payton Farmer had two baskets during the rally, and Tayler Garland made two 3-pointers in the final 1:50 of the quarter.
The Cougars (2-1) made only 1 of 13 shots from the floor in the opening quarter.
The teams matched points at 5-5 during the first half of the second period before the Braves went on an 8-0 run to open up a 23-10 lead. Garland started the rally with a baseline jumper and came up with a steal on Trinity’s next possession and drove in for a layup.
Garland had three baskets in the second quarter while the Cougars made only 1 of 5 shots from the floor during that time.
Trinity shot 2 of 18 in the first half, while Brownstown was 9 of 27.
The Braves didn’t waste any time increasing their lead at the start of the third quarter when Ashley Schroer converted a 3-point play and followed it with a layup.
The Braves held a 32-18 lead following a pair of free throws by Garland. The Cougars came back on a 5-0 run, sparked by four free throws by Abby Hackman to trail 32-23.
Piper Acton scored eight points in the quarter as the Cougars outscored the Braves 14-11. Schroer topped the Braves with 7 points.
The Braves (3-1) went on a 6-0 run early in the fourth quarter, with Schroer scoring the last four points on a pair of layups to increase the lead to 42-28 with 5:10 remaining.
Garland topped the Braves in scoring with 17 points. Stuckwisch and Schroer both had 11.
“Garland is a nice player for us, and like I said the other night, we have seven players that can play on any given time and can come in when a player gets in foul trouble,” Rieckers said. “I thought my younger kids stepped up and did a nice job.”
Cougars coach Donna Sullivan said that cold shooting hurt her team.
“We missed a lot of easy shots early, especially in the first quarter,” she said. “We only shot 27 percent for the game and you’ve got to shoot better than that. Defensively I thought we were OK. They scored 51 points, but they got a lot at the end of the game when we were fouling. Overall I thought our effort was good. We stayed after it and played hard. We just got to get our offensive clicking.”
Brownstown will travel to Mitchell on Friday night, and Trinity will go to Crothersville on Saturday.
Trinty’s game with Eastern Greene has be postponed because of Eastern’s football team playing in the semistate Friday.