Coach Mike Lang says he feels his Trinity Lutheran girls basketball team can have success playing full court against Springs Valley in the West Washington Class 1A Regional at 4 p.m. Saturday.

The Cougars (21-6) did not play the Blackhawks (17-7) during the season. While the Cougars have won six straight, Valley brings an eight-game win streak into the regional, and has won 12 of its last 13 games. Valley lost at Vincennes Rivet 51-34 (its last loss) on Jan. 7, then beat the Patriots 53-45 in the sectional.

Trinity averages 60.4 points per game and gives up an average of 41.6, while Valley averages 45.1 and allows 41.8 per game. Trinity’s offensive average is 16th in the state.

Lang said, “Transition. I think one of our strengths is when we get out and go. One thing we’ve done outstanding here as of late, they’ve ran their offense really well, and have been able to find the open shooter and been able to knock them down.”

Bailey Tabeling leads the Cougars in scoring at 22.6 per game. She ranks 11th in the state in scoring and has scored 2,194 points during her career.

Lang said, “We’ve just got to take care of the ball. We don’t need to rush the shot, we want them to play a little bit of defense. We’ve got good shooters all over the floor.”

Madison Keith is averaging 11.3 points per game, Liza Froedge is averaging 10.0 and Jordan Brewer is averaging 9.6.

Lang said opponents have played not only man-to-man defense, but also different kinds of zones, and some part zone part man like a box-and-one and a triangle and two.

“It’s kind of a pick your poison. We’ve got three other players right at double figures, so it’s nothing that we haven’t seen all year long. Bailey is playing at a really high level. She tried to get double-teamed in the sectional and that just didn’t work. She’s locked in.”

This will be the fourth straight regional for Tabeling and the third for Froedge, and both have been starting since their freshman years.

Tabeling said, “We’ll have to make them defend. We’re going to have to run our plays all the way through, wait for the open looks, not try to push anything.

“We’ll try to push them into transition, and if we can’t get it there then we’ll set it up. Our main thing is to make them defend for a good amount of time and get them tired. They run a flex offense, and they do really well running it until the defense breaks down at some point.

“We’ll just have to be engaged in defense the whole time, talk on everything that’s happening. It will be a big communication game more than anything.”

She said the Cougars will need to hit a good percentage of their shots. “We’ll just have to get as many shots up before the game as we can and not let our misses bother us during the game.”

Froedge said, “We have to play smart defense and make sure we don’t get in foul trouble. We need to make sure we block out because they’re tall and they crash the boards.

“We just need to make sure we stay calm and we’re all looking to score, and just wait on the open looks to come and not force things.”

Lang said positioning will be one key for the Cougars.

“They go 5-9, 5-10 inside,” he said. ”It’s kind of smaller than what we’ve seen the last couple weeks, but they’re big kids, strong. Bailey has good length, Liza has good length, and Madison is strong, so I feel we match up all right.”

Keith tops the Cougars in rebounding at 9.2 per game and Tabeling is next at 8.1.

Lanesville will play Wood Memorial in the second game at West Washington, but the winners of the two games there won’t necessarily play one another as the IHSAA will redraw the semistate pairings.

Lang enjoys coaching at West Washington.

“We’ve had some good success there. Tecumseh beat us in the regional last year and they went on to win the state. With being on the road three days last week we didn’t go down and practice there. We stayed home and watched some film and practiced here,” he said. “We know the environment and the surroundings. It’s probably the gym we’ve played the most in except here.”

The Cougars went 1-4 between Dec. 30 and Jan. 10. Lang said, “We had a lot of games right there in a cluster. We’ve had a chance to kind of redo some things and change some things up, and we’ll go down and give it our best shot. They’re playing really well right now. They’re relaxed, they’re having fun and I don’t think they think any challenge is too big for them.”