MORGANTOWN — With its best shooter on the bench with an injury, the Trinity Christian girls’ basketball team was searching for offense on Tuesday night.
The Warriors (4-4) appeared to have found a couple of answers as Jenna Barnett and Kaylee Wimer answered the call in a 60-31 victory over Madonna.
Despite some early issues with shooting the ball – head coach Mike Baldy was pleading at times for his team to shoot – the Warriors finally found their shooting touch. Trinity finished the evening shooting 24-of-54 from the field and connected on several long jump shots.
“Ella (Lynch) is a shoot-first player and none of the rest of the team really is,” Baldy said of his junior who is averaging 8.6 points per game and is expected to miss the next two weeks. “(Kaylee) has shot the ball well all season. We just need to have her quit stepping on the dang three-point line.”
Wimer finished with 13 points but only one 3-pointer as she did manage to touch the arc on several long-distance shots that went through the net.
“It’s a nice feeling to get to shoot more this year,” Wimer, who was a deep bench player last year, said. “Coach told us we need to step our game up. Without Ella, it’s a little harder to score from outside. But, I think when she comes back this is only going to make us better.”
Once the Warriors finally did start to shoot, they pushed through an early 5-2 deficit in the first quarter and went on an 11-0 run to grab a 15-6 lead after one quarter.
The Dons did manage to cut the lead to 19-14 on a three-point-play by Shea McCoy, but Madonna never got closer. McCoy led the Dons’ offense with 14 points.
“That’s kind of the story of our season,” Madonna coach Cory Wingett said. “We just have not been able to find the bottom of the net much.”
Madonna hit just 11-of-49 shots from the field with four of those baskets coming in the fourth quarter when the game was out of reach. In fact, the Dons managed to hit just one basket in the third quarter at the 1:11 mark.
Part of that trouble with shooting for Madonna was a Trinity defense that forced 12 turnovers in the third quarter and 25 in the entire contest.
“We want our defense to kind of turn into our offense as much as we can with transition,” Baldy said. “We get so stagnant and stale in our halfcourt offense. We were able to create a lot of turnovers right up at the top and that was obviously good for us to get transition buckets.”
Junior Jenna Barnett led the TCS offense with 18 points. She also added nine steals, nine assists and four rebounds. Wimer poured in her 13 points while Sucora Brown added 13 points and seven rebounds. Abigail Fisher scored 12 points with six rebounds, three assists and two blocks.
Trinity returns to action on Saturday when it hosts Moorefield at 1 p.m.
BY ERIC HERTER
Trinity 60, Madonna 31
Madonna 6 10 2 13 31
Trinity 15 15 22 8 60
Madonna (1-5)
Julia Wingett 3 0-0 9, Mia Pietranton 1 0-0 2, Rylee Birkhimer 2 0-0 4, Shea McCoy 4 6-11 14, Rosa Cody 1 0-0 2. Totals: 11 6-11 31.
Trinity (4-4)
Jenna Barnett 4 8-9 18, Sucora Brown 6 12 13, Laura Dinkel 1 0-0 2, Kaylee Wimer 6 0-0 13, Lilly Burrell 1 0-0 2, Abigail Fisher 6 0-0 12. Totals: 24 9-11 60.
3-Pointers – Madonna: 3 (Wingett 3). Trinity 3 (Barnett 2, Wimer).
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