MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — In its last night at home, the Trinity Christian girls’ basketball team faced an overmatched and undermanned St. John Central Academy (Ohio), such that the final score was 68-13 in favor of the Warriors, which was an accurate measure of the relative differences in experience and ability between the two teams.
Any time a coach encounters this much of a disparity on the court, the goals are always the same: Be respectful of your opposition, get everyone plenty of playing time and stick to the game plan.
According to Trinity coach Mike Baldy, his team did quite well with No. 1 and No. 2 and a pretty decent job with No. 3, and that means it was all in all a good night for his Warriors.
“We always have three keys to victory before every game,” he explained. “For the last three weeks, those keys have been the same: Effort, efficiency and passing. And no matter the level of your competition, you’ve got to take care of those three main categories if you want to be successful. So when you face a team that is still challenged by the basics, you still have to run your offense, make the right passes, take the right shots, do the right things. Besides, we’re still young enough that we need to be working on the basics ourselves. Plenty to learn every time out.”
Trinity (9-10) scored the first 14 points of the game and held a first quarter lead of 19-1, was up 37-3 at halftime and opened up a 57-9 advantage after three quarters before the final 55-point margin of victory was etched into the books. Jacklyn Smith led all scorers with 18 points, Olivia Austin swished a pair of three-pointers on her way to 16 points, Maggie Mercure scored 14 and sophomore Katrina Hyde pumped in a career-best 13.
“This is the kind of game that can really make a difference for someone like Katrina,” Baldy insisted. “Success breeds success, so a game like this can really boost a young player’s confidence. They feel more comfortable in looking for their shot, knowing that they’ve hit it before and can do it again. It’s both a physical and mental thing, I think.”
So how would Baldy grade out his team on those three keys?
“B+ on effort and C’s on the other two,” he said. “We didn’t execute on some opportunities to make the right pass at the right time and left some points on the floor as a result. And while I think we attempted to run our half-court offense the right way — which is a good thing for sure, rather than running more than we needed to — we’re still working on our execution.
“We’re gonna need that efficiency when we face tougher competition in the Sectional tournament,” he continued. “So anytime we have a chance to see the things we do in practice actually work in a game is just reinforcing how we want to play. We did that enough tonight that I’m definitely happy how things went for us tonight.”
The Warriors host Paden City in a make-up game Wednesday night at 7 p.m., then close out their regular season on the road at Tygarts Valley Friday night at 6:30 p.m. before the Sectional Tournament begins the following Friday night.
