By Dan Truttschel
Correspondent
From East Troy co-head coach Maurya Lomen’s perspective, last week’s Rock Valley Conference game at Evansville came down to one key factor.
Free throws.
Evansville took 35 attempts from the charity stripe, compared to just seven for the Trojans, as the Blue Devils cruised to a 56-32 victory and moved into a second-place tie with East Troy.
The loss dropped the Trojans to 14-6 overall and 11-5 in conference play. Both teams are two games behind McFarland with two regular-season games remaining.
Foul trouble plagued East Troy throughout, as both Erin Rice and Addy Lomen spent considerable time on the bench.
“We’re not a deep team, (and) we’re very young,” Lomen said. “We just couldn’t get it going. … There’s a (lack of) consistency in the calls. I don’t know what to do. … That’s not to take anything away from Evansville. They’re very aggressive. I love the way they play. They attack the boards hard.
“We didn’t rebound very well. We stopped their initial attack, but they killed us second shots. We didn’t shoot very well. My kids were getting shots off. It’s hard to finish when there’s that much contact being made and nothing is being called. If you’re going to call it on one end, you have to call it on the other.”
East Troy fell behind, 25-13, at halftime and couldn’t recover from there.
Grace Lomen led the way with 15 points and 11 rebounds, followed by Rice with seven points and four rebounds.
“We’re OK with losing, it’s just when you lose when you can’t get into a rhythm because the game is being controlled and not managed, it’s very difficult,” Lomen said.
Senior Mackenzie Lindow, who had missed several games with a knee injury, returned to the starting lineup against Evansville. Lomen said Lindow is slowly being worked back into the rotation.
East Troy hosted Beloit Turner on Wednesday in a game that was postponed Tuesday. The Trojans close their regular season on Friday at Brodhead.
The Trojans drew the No. 4 seed in the upcoming Division 3 regional and host fifth-seeded Union Grove on Friday, Feb. 22, at 7 p.m. The winner faces either top-seeded Waterford, eighth-seeded Fort Atkinson or ninth-seeded Delavan-Darien on Feb. 23.
“We’re working on the same things we always do,” Lomen said. “We’re getting shots up. We’re focusing on rebounding. We want to continue to be positive for our girls. We’re trying to teach them life lessons, and those are the things we’re doing.”
Trojans cruise to road win
East Troy opened its week with a 71-49 non-conference win Feb. 5 at Milwaukee Lutheran.
Rice led four girls in double figures with 19 points and seven rebounds, followed by Grace Lomen with 16 points, 11 rebounds and six assists and Gracie Moker with 12 points.
Morgan Golabowski added 10 points in the victory.
