16 January 2013

Girls BB: No. 6 Trojans down Tigers 57-41

Alicia Hett 10 points (photo by Jim Lindquist)
The Tigers stayed with sixth-rated New Prague until midway through the second half when the Trojans pulled away for a 57-41 victory Tuesday night in New Prague.The loss was Farmington's third straight to a top-10 rated team.

With the win the Trojans moved to 10-4 overall and 2-2 in conference play. The Tigers are 2-14 and 0-5.

"The girls played very well tonight," Tiger coach Sondra Chadwick said. "Foul trouble was the difference in this game. We had two starters on the bench early."

New Prague went to the free throw line 26 times in the contest, making 19 while the Tigers finished with just six in 11 tries.

Thanks to 10 points from Alicia Hett and a strong floor game from Sofia Chadwick in breaking New Prague's press, the visitors were within eight points at intermission at 29-21.

Farmington cut its deficit to six early in the second period before the Trojans began to take advantage of their superior size.

Coach Chadwick said there were a couple of major silver linings in her team's loss.

"We handled their full-court pressure without issue," she said. "We shot the best we have all season, making 20 of 41 from the field, and we played great defense, holding their leading scorer without a field goal.

"What hurt was something that has been hurting us all season. Their post player scored 25 points....But I was proud of the girls for how hard they worked out there and for the tenacity in which they played defense."

Hett finished atop the Tiger scoring charts with her 10 first half points. Chadwick had eight points, six assists and three steals and was responsible for holding The Trojans' Annie Dittberner (14 points a game) without a field goal.

Sydney Speer had eight points and Abby Gallus added seven despite spending a lot of time on the bench with foul trouble. Kaitlin Gorden pulled down eight rebounds and Aly Grebner provided a park off the bench in both halves.

The Tigers get a reprieve from state-ranked opposition Friday night when they travel to Richfield for a Missota Conference game with Holy Angels.