By Dan Truttschel
Correspondent
There wasn’t a whole lot of offense going on when the East Troy High School girls basketball team hosted Evansville on Friday night.
But there was plenty of defense – and that was more than enough for the Trojans.
East Troy held Evansville to just 12 first-half points and steadily pulled away en route to a 41-31 Rock Valley Conference victory.
The win improved the Trojans to 9-7 overall and 5-6 in the RVC. Evansville fell to 1-10 in conference play.
Whitewater, ranked No. 1 in Division 3 by wissports.net, continues to lead the North Division at 11-0, followed by McFarland at 9-2 and Edgerton at 8-2. East Troy is next at 5-6, followed by Jefferson at 4-7 and Evansville.
Defensive execution throughout the game with Evansville was a key, East Troy coach Jeff Brown said.
“We were very aggressive in our zone (in the first half), and we did a great job limiting them to one shot,” he said. “We (also) controlled the boards.
“(In the second half), we stayed pretty focused on the defensive end and had very few turnovers to allow for points in transition. I thought we did a great job of taking care of the ball.”
That solid defensive effort has been a theme for most of the season, Brown said.
“We have played pretty good defense most of the year,” he said. “When we struggle, it’s to score.”
East Troy led 18-12 at halftime and outscored Evansville 23-20 in the final 18 minutes.
Erin Rice led the way with 15 points, seven rebounds and four steals, followed by Mackenzie Lindow with 13 points and five steals. Kayla Casper added six points and seven rebounds, while Callie Vogel grabbed six rebounds.
Maddie Rosin chipped in with six rebounds and four steals for the Trojans.
East Troy hosted Jefferson on Thursday night. The Trojans face visiting Badger Saturday night in a 7 p.m. nonconference matchup.
“We have to take care of the ball against both teams,” Brown said. “(We’re) looking forward to playing against Jefferson to see if we improved from the last time we played them (a 58-43 loss).”
Late run sinks Trojans
East Troy hung with host Big Foot until a few miscues late proved costly in a 50-40 RVC crossover loss Jan. 24.
Big Foot led 21-18 at halftime, before it outscored the Trojans by seven points in the second half.
“I thought we played a pretty good game against a very talented Big Foot team,” Brown said. “We were within four points with eight minutes left, and we had one bad spurt where we turned the ball over.”
Rice finished with a team-high 19 points and five rebounds, followed by Lindow with eight points and four assists. Casper added six points and seven rebounds, while Vogel grabbed four rebounds.
