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Basketball Knights Blow By MVC Foe Civic Memorial, Fall To Breese Central At Home

By Anthony Jones

Finally back home after a 5 game road stretch, Triad’s boys basketball team hosted both the Breese Central Cougars and Civic Memorial Eagles this past week.

Their first game back was a December 7 hosting of Breese Central. Entering the contest, the Cougars held a 5-1 record.

Triad could not have asked for a much better start to the game, going up 9-2 early in the first quarter as McGrady Noyes put up 4 points for the team. The visitors responded with a hot streak of their own however and knotted the score at 9-9 at the end of the period.

With a little more than 2 minutes left in the half, the Knights had once again taken the lead at 17-16. Yet another big finish to a quarter for Breese Central quickly changed this however, as they scored 8 of the final 10 points in the half to go up 24-19.

The Cougar’s momentum continued into the second half, as they went on to win by a score of 48-35. Shooting 50% from the field, Ayden Hitt led Triad in scoring with 14 points. Freshman Drew Winslow also finished with a high total of 9 points and 5 rebounds.

Three days later, the Knights returned to their home court to host conference foe Civic Memorial. The two teams had already faced off prior in the year, with Triad taking a 75-55 victory.

Taking a slight 8-5 lead early in the first quarter, the Knights looked set to play a much more competitive game this time around. But with 2:06 left in the opening period, the game was paused due to a tornado warning.

After a nearly 50 minute suspension in action, the game was finally back underway. Triad looked like a much different team in the return to action, finishing out the quarter on an 11-2 run to go up 19-7.

The second quarter saw the Knights continue their dominance, giving up a mere two points. In the same time frame, Triad scored 10 points of their own to go up 29-9 at the intermission. This also improved their run since the tornado pause to 21-4.

Triad Head Coach Jeff Guidry spoke on his team’s momentum out of the break, “I think they were just antsy and ready to get back out there. Honestly, I was a bit concerned because we didn’t really start out that great and to have that kind of delay, I was worried. But we came out great and had a lot of energy and held them to 4 points from then until halftime. I was proud of the way we responded.”

In the third quarter, Triad extended their lead to 28 points at 45-17. A three point shot by Hitt to start the final quarter put them up 48-17, enough to start a running clock. At the end of the night, the Knights won by a final of 58-23.

Amassing 22 points and shooting 66.67% from the field, Hitt once again was the key player to Triad’s offense. Noyes totaled half as many points and 8 rebounds on the night.

Following their win, the Knights improved to 3-5 on the season. Their record may be deceiving however, as the team has only played one opponent with a losing record so far and has lost two games that came down to a single basket.

“I’m satisfied so far. I think we’ve had a learning curve and we certainly haven’t started off with what I would call an easy schedule. It’s tough when you throw a young team into that, but it doesn’t really get much easier for us. The conference is really good this year, it’s probably the deepest it’s been in awhile. We still have some work to do, but we’re learning,” Coach Guidry commented on his team’s start to the season.

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