12/5/09 Gettysburg, Ohio
Was it a defensive battle or just a cold shooting night for the Patriots? If you ask National Trail Coach Troy Ferguson he will tell you it was a perfectly executed game plan on the part of his team that led to a 26-25 win over the PATS.

National Trail opened up in a 1-3-1 zone while using the size of 6-3” Kate Yeazel to front and take away the inside game of Kayla Linkous. It was successful… but the PATS were able to get three outside scores, two from Frech and a trey from Burns go up 7-6 in the opening frame. Makayla Abner score two fielders and Rikki Foust got a bucket to keep pace with TV.

The zone by NT continued to frustrate the Patriots from getting the ball inside… and they started to go ice cold from the outside as Trail held TV to just 2 points in the second quarter. Meanwhile Abner scored 4 more points to help National Trail to a half time lead of 14-9.

In the third quarter TV kept pace with the Blazers early on… but two critical fouls by Kate Yeazel, her 4th foul coming on a basket by Adrianna Finkbine sent her to the bench. An opportunistic Patriot team took advantage by going inside to Kayla Linkous who was able to score 6 straight points to give Tri-Village a 21-20 3rd quarter lead.

The Blazers regained the lead 22-21 on another Rikki Foust drive at 6:30 of the 4th quarter. KJ answered to regain the lead 23-22 at 5:10 to play. Moments later Paige Thompson hit on 1-of-2 free throws to deadlock the game 23-23.

From there the game slowed as a chess match between the coaches ensued both holding the ball trying to pull each other out of their zone defenses. The first to take advantage was Tri-Village as Linkous got a one on one match-up and drove the lane for two to go up 25-23 at the 1:30 mark.

With less than a minute to play Thompson missed a free throw… but a non-existent Kate Yeazel (back in the game) reigned in the offensive rebound and hit a turn-around-jumper (her only points of the game) to tie the contest at 25.

Tri-Village then had a one-and-one opportunity but missed giving the ball back to National Trail who would work the clock to try and get the last shot. It was Abner who stepped forward one more time for the Blazers as she was fouled on a pull up jumper. Abner hit the crucial first free throw, missed the second toss and TV tried to get up the floor… but was unable to get off a good shot and Trail earned a dramatic 26-25 win.

“This was a big win for our program tonight,” said Coach Ferguson. “We have played so many close games against Tri-Village over the last 3 years and we haven’t been able to win the close game down the stretch.” I told our girls to be considered a good program we have to beat a legitimate team… a team we aren’t supposed to beat. We did that tonight. Going forward it should give our kids confidence that we can win games like this,” added Ferguson.

So was it a poor shooting night for Tri-Village or good defense by National Trail?

“I’m not a zone guy, said Ferguson. I knew Tri-Village wanted to push the ball and wanted to get it inside to Linkous. I thought the zone was our best chance of controlling the tempo and limiting inside touches and we were taking our chances their shooters wouldn’t hit shots. I’d like to think part of that was due to the way our girls played defense tonight,” concluded Ferguson.

Kayla Linkous scored 14 points on the night to lead Tri-Village while Makayla Abner had 11 points for National Trail.

TV is back in action Tuesday to take on a tough Lady Wildcats team from Houston.

National Trail is home Tuesday night taking on Preble Shawnee in non-conference action.

Score by quarters:
Tri-Village...07…02…06…10 – 25
Nat Trail..…06…08…04…08 – 26

Tri-Village
Frech 0-1-2/2 – 4
Finkbine 0-1-0/1 – 2
Burns 1-1-0/0 - 5
S. Thomas 0-0-0/1 – 1
Linkous 0-6-2/7 – 14
Totals 1-9-4/13 – 25

National Trail
Yeazel 1-0-0/0 – 2
Shaeffer 0-0-0/1 – 0
Foust 0-3-0/0 – 6
Thompson 0-2-1/3 – 5
Abner 0-5-1/2 – 11
Ebersole 0-1-0/1 - 2
Totals 0-12-2/7 – 26

Three Pointers:
Tri-Village: 1 (Burns 1)