LCA Rights Its Wrongs In Huge Win
WINONA LAKE – After falling victim to a huge loss in the morning, night basketball was a complete turnaround for Lakeland Christian Academy in a 44-28 girls basketball victory over South Bend Trinity in Saturday’s middle game of the LCA Cougar Classic.
It was all LCA from the start, jumping out to a 10-1 lead after the first quarter and then never looked back. Trinity finally managed to make its first basket early in the second quarter, but LCA had opened up a double-digit lead and took a 23-11 lead into the break.
The success of the inside game for the Lady Cougars had Rachel Sand dip to the bucket for a pair of easy looks. Sand led all scorers with 10 points, but the balance of LCA had six of the eight players that scored find the scorebook in the first half.
“We kept up our intensity in our press, and we did take better shots than we did in the first game (against Granger Christian),” said LCA girls basketball head coach Ty Propp. “We did better with our 1-3-1 defense and we continued to keep our focus and worked hard. I was happy to see a lot of our girls get good touches on the ball, and we did play much better.”
Hannah Remington and Joselyn Helton both notched eight points, Helton’s all coming in the fourth quarter. Morgan Holsclaw tossed in six points for the Cougars, which move to 4-7 on the season.
Sierra Barbour and Laura Nagle each finished with six points each for Trinity.
LCA picked up a 47-37 win against Trinity back in December at the Bethany Christian Tournament, and Propp initially was worried Trinity might come out firing with revenge in mind.
“Trinity isn’t quite up to our level as a team, but we still had to focus on our game and execute on offense, and to a degree we did that,” Propp said. “We faced them before, and had some success. I was a little worried coming in that we might remember that last game and think it would be an easy game. I was really happy to see that we got going early and didn’t let them back in the game.”
LCA wraps up its tournament with a game against Covenant Christian at 4 p.m. Saturday.
“Covenant is really tall and they run a lot,” Propp said. “The one thing with a team that can run, if you don’t show discipline and you fall into their habits, you’ll lose control and they will take you out of your style. Covenant will try to use their height to their advantage. We just have to box out and play good defense.”
Trinity Crushes LCA Boys
The final game of Friday’s slate at the Classic did not have the same hometown flavor. South Bend Trinity had six players reach double figures in scoring and another with nine as the Titans crushed LCA 81-40 in boys hoops.
Emmanuel Black paced the Titans with 14 points while Jacob Yant added 12 points, four boards and four steals. David Preuss and Patrick Morin each had 11 points and Mark Havard and Matthew Loughram each finished with 10 points.
The Titans forced the Cougars into 29 turnovers and held LCA to just two points in the third quarter. Trinity opened the game with a 29-15 lead after a quarter and outscored LCA 36-11 in the second half, shooting 71 percent (15-21) from the floor in the final two quarters.
The Cougars (0-8) were led by the 14 points and 12 rebounds from Connor Blum and 14 points and two assists from Chris Silveus.
LCA will finish up its slate in the Classic with the final game of the tournament Saturday, a 5:30 p.m. game with Covenant Christian.