It was a bit of a slow start for both teams on Friday night Lloyd E. Scott Gymnasium as Seymour hosted Batesville, but the Owls eventually pulled away to secure a 57-42 victory.

Both teams were turning it over early, and the only points for the first couple of minutes was a 3-pointer from the Bulldogs’ Emma Weiler.

Brooke Trinkle sparked the Owls with her on-ball pressure, creating turnovers and getting herself some easy baskets in transition. Seymour took a 15-12 lead after the first quarter, and Trinkle had six of those points. All 12 of Batesville’s points in the first came from behind the arc as the Bulldogs shot 4-of-5 from deep.

The second quarter was when Seymour really started to put the pressure on. The Bulldogs could only amount four points in the second frame as the Owls extended their lead to 10 at halftime, 26-16.

“We got to get into the transition game right now,” head coach Jason Longmeier said. “We do a good job when we can get out in transition.”

Trinkle continued to lead the team with 11 points at the break, and after a 0-3 start in the first quarter, Kendall Sterling got going a bit, scoring six points in the second.

A positive spark Seymour saw in the first half came from Greer Henry, who finished the game with nine rebounds in two quarters.

“That’s a big deal,” Longmeier said. “That’s a want-to out of her. She’s a tough, hard-nosed kid. Every day she comes to practice and does what we ask her to do, and she reaped the benefits of that tonight.”

The Bulldogs tried to claw back a bit in the third quarter. They got within seven points after Weiler continued her hot shooting from three, and then got fouled on a 3-point attempt and made all three free throws. Then a couple buckets from Alyson Peters made a 6-point game.

But the Owls quickly responded. A 3-pointer from Kaylee Waskom put Seymour back up nine. Waskom missed a second 3-point attempt in the closing seconds of the third quarter, but Claire Marshall grabbed the rebound and put it back up for two to give Seymour a 40-31 lead heading into the fourth.

The Owls had no issues putting the game away in the fourth quarter. The same formula of creating pressure and getting easy baskets led Seymour to extend its lead and defeat the Bulldogs 57-42.

Sterling had one of her more inefficient shooting nights, but she still managed to lead the Owls in scoring with 17 points.

“As a whole, that was probably the worst shooting game we had all season, yet it’s the most points that we’ve scored,” Longmeier said. “I think we did some other good things. A lot of those shots that we missed, we have to take. We shot 15 threes and made one, but 13 of those were good looks. We have to take those.”

Other contributors on the scoreboard for Seymour was Trinkle with 15, Schrader had 9, Journee Brown 7, Waskom 3, Jaidyn Nichols 3, Marshall 2 and Eliza Cash 1.

Seymour has now won two straight and is 2-2 on the season.

“I’m proud of our girls tonight,” Longmeier said. “We’re a lot better this week than we were last week.”

Seymour’s JV team won 42-31 prior to the varsity game. Jaidyn Nichols led the Owls with 16 points and Maddie Schrader contributed 11 as the top two point scorers in that game.

Seymour will have one week off now before returning to action the Saturday after Thanksgiving when it hosts Greensburg.

Cutting down on turnovers will be a key for the Owls moving forward with their season.

“We gotta fix out turnovers. It’s a big deal for us to continue to turn the ball over at the pace we are,” Longmeier said. “We gotta fix that. We just gotta continue to grind defensively. I think offensively we’ll be there. I thought our movement wasn’t very good tonight. We were pretty stagnant, so we gotta go back to work on that, too.”