Triad Uses First Half Buzzer Beater To Pull Away From Panthers In MVC Opener

The teams will meet again in Troy on Friday, Januaury 9.

Dec 2, 2025 6:41 PM

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JERSEYVILLE – While Triad High School had an e-Learning day and the Jersey Panthers had a traditional snow day, that didn’t stop the two teams from opening up Mississippi Valley Conference play.

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The Knights made the trip to Jersey County and walked out with a 65-49 win, improving to 4-1 on the season and 1-0 in the final season of the MVC.

“It’s just a tough place to play,” Triad head coach Josh Hunt said. “You’re on a bus for 50 minutes. Tonight was kind of a quiet gym; they didn’t have school today, and we didn’t either. It’s just a unique day where kids are thrown off their regular routine. That makes a difference.”

The lack of school and the bitter cold outside didn’t bother either team as they went blow for blow in the first half.

Triad’s Kenzie Becker opened the scoring, going one-for-two from the free-throw line and following it up with a couple of baskets to take a 5-2 lead. The Panthers got straight baskets from Anna Kribs and Meredith Gray to lead 6-5. They’d lead 10-9 after the first quarter.

Makenna Brunaugh opened the second quarter with a three-pointer to extend the lead, but a quick 7-0 run from the Knights gave them the lead back at 16-13.

The teams stayed close, with the game tied at 19 and again at 25. The first half saw 10 lead changes.

A three from Cali Breeden made it 28-27 Jersey, but only momentarily before Presley Thompson hit a buzzer-beater three to retake a 30-28 lead.

“Kenzie Becker played off two feet, kicked it out to Presley [Thompson], and she stepped up and made a big shot,” Hunt said. “Swung the momentum our way a little bit.”

That it did.

And if that wasn’t enough, the Knights opened the second half with another triple, this time from Erica Boyce, her first points of the game, to widen the margin to 33-28.

Gray tied the game at 36 with just under five minutes left in the third, but the Panthers never regained the lead. They’d trail 45-41 after three quarters.

Thompson opened the final quarter with her fourth three-pointer of the night as the Knights outscored Jersey 20-8 down the stretch.

“I was kind of disappointed in our defense in the first half, but we cleaned it up in the second,” Hunt said. “We kind of took [Jersey’s] legs at the end, fatigue set in, and then in the fourth quarter, I think we outscored them 20-8. So, that’s a big deal.”

The Knights caused all sorts of chaos early on, cutting off passing lanes, taking charges, and causing turnovers in any way possible. And Jersey just didn’t react fast enough.

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“We just talked about that in the locker room. We struggled making adjustments tonight,” Jersey head coach Caleb Williams said postgame. “We’re going to be more coachable in the future and make the adjustments that we talk about.”

“[Triad] can also run eight or nine girls in there, and we don’t have that luxury at the moment,” he said. “Hoping here pretty quick in the near future that we will, so that way we’ll have more legs.”

Another thing that Williams mentioned was relying on production from some other players, not just his go-to starters

Jersey didn’t have any points from its bench. Triad had 26.

Gray led all scorers with 19 points. Breeden had 11, Neely Goetten had 10, Kribs had six, and Brunaugh scored three.

The Panthers take their first loss of the season as they fall to 1-3 and 0-1 in the MVC.

The Knights were led by Thompson’s 15 points on five treys. Boyce had 13 while Juliette Duff and Addy Gentemann each scored 11 points off the bench, making it four players in double figures.

“I don’t think we have anybody that [teams] can truly key on,” Hunt said. “It’s fun to play that way. We graduated two girls who scored 1,000 points, and obviously, the main focus was those two girls. Well, this year, I think we have five, six, seven, even eight or nine girls who can score double figures.”

Those two girls were Makenna Witham and Savannah Hildebrand. Witham finished her high school career with 1,129 points. Hildebrand racked up 1,075.

But Hunt is confident in any one of his players' ability to shoot the ball.

“We tell them, we just want you to go one-for-one on your next shot, shoot with confidence,” he said. “They’re really good shooters. We want them to shoot their next open shot. They do a good job with that.”

Triad made 11 threes on the night.

The last time the Knights were in Jersey’s gym, they shot lights out from beyond the arc, an impressive 15-of-34. Hildebrand made seven, Boyce and Erica Hess each had three, and Witham had two.

Tuesday was Triad’s third straight win over Jersey.

Now, both teams are off until Friday, December 5, when they continue league play.

Triad will host Waterloo while Jersey hosts Civic Memorial. Both of those games start at 6 p.m.