STEWARTVILLE 72, TRITON 52

Stewartville topped Triton in a make up game in the Hiawatha Valley League Monday night. Youth was served on both teams with sophomores or younger the prime personalities. The Tigers start two sophs and two frosh. Triton starts three sophs. The leading scorers for both teams were sophs. All the leading stat categories in the matrix below are sophs. The difference is Stewartville is the ninth ranked team in AA. The combination of speed and length gave Stewartville the advantage throughout. If you looked at the turnover totals for both teams you would see an equal 21. But if you looked deeper you would see Stewartville was turning the ball over every 29 touches to Triton’s 15.9. Looking at scoring Stewartville came in with a point every 4.8 touches to Triton’s 6.4.

The Tigers were on right at the start getting out to a 14-5 lead after four minutes. When Triton called their first time out with six minutes to go in the half the visitors were up 26-14. Stewartville closed the half with a 16-6 run to lead 42-20. If you add the first two minutes of the second half the run expands to 25-6 (51-20). Lily Welch and Erin Lamb were the one two punch for Stewartville with a combined 40 points. Their night was over with eight minutes left and the Tigers with a commanding 31 point lead (66-35). The Cobras won the last eight minutes 17-6.

The starting point guard for Stewartville is sophomore Kailee Malone. Her father is Tim Malone, now the athletic director at Stewartville. He formerly was the coach at Braham when Rebekah Dahlman was in action.

The Triton coach this year is Melissa Young. Young has a long lineage as coach including high school stints at St. Croix Lutheran, Hastings, Anoka, and Nicollet along with college jobs at Bethany Lutheran, Hamline, Culver-Stockton and as an assistant with the Gophers during the Cheryl Littlejohn era.

Stewartville, along with Byron, dropped down a class this year to AA. The Tigers are definitely doing better in the smaller class. This year they have already improved with ten wins and counting.

This was my first time to Triton’s gym. I have been to all of the 64 AAAA gyms, and am just missing out on Bemidji in AAA. The lower in class we go the less I have been to. For example in the Hiawatha Valley League I have missed out on two gyms: Pine Island and strangely Goodhue. I see most of the HVL teams at Rochester in sections or in other events.

In case you are looking at your Minnesota map for Triton you should be looking for Dodge Center where the school is located. The “Tri” besides DC, includes West Concord and Claremont.

Stewartville is now 19-5 overall. The Tigers are sitting at 12-1 in 1AA, which is looking like the number one seed. In the HVL they are 13-2. Triton has the exact opposite record at 5-19. The are 1-10 in 1AA and are searching for their first in the HVL at 0-14.

Another team is now off the 100 list. I sit at 92 with 8 to go.

Team	PP100	scorer	Distributor	D stops
Stewartville	97.3	Lily Welch 21	Kailee Malone 8	Lily Welch 11
Triton	71.2	Kendra Petersohn 14	Sydney Gilliland 10	Sydney Gilliland 13

TRENCH PLAYER: 5-9 sophomore guard Lily Welch of Stewartville