Triton survives slow start to take win over Glenn

BOURBON — It wasn’t the way Triton coach Jason Groves would have drawn it up but it’s still a win as his Trojans played a light’s out defensive second half and ran away with a 64-31 win over Glenn.
“I thought we got off to a slow start,” said Groves. “I think we turned the ball over 11 times. That’s not acceptable, but the defense was there pretty consistently. Our guys can play pretty good defense when we want to, but offensively, we just seemed a little unsure of ourselves for some reason.”
Some of that uncertainty could have come from the Falcons who came out in a zone and were able to get some key buckets from Jude Nicks and Kadyn Lang to be within striking distance at the end of quarter one, trailing by three.
By half the Trojans were able to stretch the lead to 10 and came out of the locker room on fire to run away and hide.
“That first half was exactly what we wanted,” said Glenn coach John Dupont. “We watched film yesterday and saw what Triton did to Winamac a few weeks ago where the first five possessions in the second half; they took it from a five-point game to a 15-point game. Right before we came out for the second half, we reminded them of that, and wouldn’t you know, they took it from a 10-point game to 22 22-point game before we score.”
The bit reason was a clamp-down effort by Triton to limit Glenn’s looks at the basket and hold the Falcons to just 14 points in the second half.
“Our guys are very capable of that when they want to,” said Groves. “Even our subs coming off the bench are a physical group. They are physically strong, they can keep people in front of them. We’ve made a focus on rebounding and boxing out, and I thought, for the most part, we did a better job of that tonight. Overall, I’m very pleased.”
“We just can’t afford that type of start at the beginning,” he said. “We can’t afford to turn the ball over 11 times. They came back in the second half and did a nice job.”
Triton was led by Tanner Witt-Hoyo with a big night one rebound shy of a double/double with 12 points and nine rebounds. Freshman Brady Wood had 10 points and Dante Workman had an all-around game with nine points, four rebounds and a pair of assists and steals.
Glenn’s young Falcons were led by Kadyn Lang with 12 and Jude Nicks with nine.
“Our guys are getting there,” said Dupont. “We had our best practice of the year last night which was kind of strange since we were supposed to play but these guys were competing, having a good time and you could see that in the first half.”
“We are getting some time for some sophomores and you can see they are catching up to the varsity speed. They are coming along.”
Glenn is now 1-10 with a game Saturday at Morgan Twp. Triton (8-1) will be in action Friday against Culver.