Jaguars crushed by Hillers’ avalanche

By DEAN DELLAMALVA JR.
MVI Sports

Thomas Jefferson girls basketball coach Lisa Fairman knew her team would be going up against a strong opponent in Trinity Thursday night.
She also knew defense and rebounding were going to be key against the Hillers, who had advantage in terms of height and experience.
Trinity won the battle on the glass and on the scoreboard in handing the Jaguars their first Section 3-5A loss, 61-36, at Hiller Hall.
Courtney Dahlquist, a Campbell University recruit, led all scorers with 18 points and seven rebounds. Junior Alyssa Clutter had 14 points, while Ashley Durig and Emily Venick each added 10 for the Hillers (8-1, 4-0).
TJ (6-3, 4-1) had trouble finding offense as leading scorer Graci Fairman managed only seven points. Maddy Trainer led the Jaguars with 13 points, but it just was not enough to overcome the potent Trinity attack.
“(Trinity) is a very good defensive team and they play well as a team on defense,” Fairman said. “They apply a lot of pressure, they communicate and it caused us some havoc tonight.”
Aiding the Hiller defensive attack was scorching first-half shooting. Trinity scored 24 first quarter points, including five 3-pointers.
“I knew coming into this game that we had to control the tempo because we are not going to drop 70 points,” Fairman said. “We can’t be giving up 60 points plus a game. We let the tempo get a little out of control. It was going to come down to our defense and rebounding. Quite honestly, we did not do a very good job with those aspects of the game.”
Despite the hot start from the Hillers, the Jaguars found themselves trailing only 17-11 late in the first quarter. However, the final seven points of the period belonged to Trinity as Dahlquist hit her third trey of the game with just 5.5 seconds to go. The lead became 13 at 24-11.
Fairman scored the first basket of the second quarter just 33 seconds in. But it was the last bucket TJ scored over the next five-plus minutes as the Hillers went on a 17-0 run. Clutter had eight of her points during the run as Trinity went on to take a 43-19 lead into halftime.
“We really did not do a good job in the second quarter. All of a sudden, you’re down double digits and we wanted to pick up the speed and it got a little sloppy,” Fairman said.
The schedule does not get any easier for the young Thomas Jefferson team as the Jaguars travel to Chartiers Valley on Saturday. Several underclassmen are still learning on the fly while playing important minutes for TJ.
“When you have a young team, this is something you can learn from, it’s a loss,” Fairman said. “Now we have to come out on Saturday and face just as good a team as Trinity in Chartiers Valley. We will have to start making some adjustments and improvements every game moving forward.
“As long as you learn from your mistakes and get better, it’s not going to hurt you. But if you don’t learn and do your job defensively, it is going to be a long season.”

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