PLYMOUTH — Donations were being taken for the United Way, but Plymouth wasn’t giving anything away on the court.
Led by Haley Smart’s five steals, the Lady Pilgrims held visiting Triton to three points or less in three quarters, allowing the Lady Trojans just 15 points total en route to a 46-15 win Thursday at The Rock.

“We’re going in the right direction. A lot of what happened was we pressured, and we didn’t think they could handle our pressure real well,” said Plymouth head coach Dave Cox. “They were struggling around in their offense a lot, but they had an opportunity and they’re a nice little team. (Triton Coach) Adam (Heckaman) is doing a really good job there, so they’ll be fine, but they’re just like us, they graduated a lot of kids. I thought tonight we were just a little step quicker rotating than they were rotating and defensively we work pretty hard at it, and we expect to get better at it every week because we spend a lot of time in practice on breakdowns. Once in awhile you get to see the efforts of your labor, and tonight was one of those nights for us.”
Down much of their points production from last year, the Pilgrims also saw positive signs from their ever-developing offense as Lauren Tanner and Marissa Green scored 13 and 10 points, respectively for Plymouth.
Tanner, a mere freshman with the team, scored all but one of her points from downtown, raining in four 3s at the game.
“Freshmen, you’ve just got to bring them along, and you put them in and if things are going to go well they get lots of minutes, and then if they go bad and they’re going to self-destruct you’ve got to get them out,” said Cox. “Tonight, boy, she played extremely well. She did extremely well and we needed her to get her confidence. She hit maybe her first or second shot that she took and she was OK. When she hit the second one — it’s just a thing I’ve known from all my years — you get a kid who can hit the second one, and their confidence goes sky-high... It was a nice game and hopefully she can make us a little bit deeper.”
While Tanner led Plymouth’s perimeter at-tack, which featured eight 3-pointers — including two from point guard Meagan Barron — Green held the team down in the lane Thursday.
Although the 6-foot junior — who was sidelined with injuries her entire sophomore season — didn’t get started until the second half, she got on a roll flashing the lane for her second double-digit game of the year following another 10-point outing in Plymouth’s opener against Peru.
“She had at least eight of them in the third quarter,” said Cox of Green’s performance Thursday. “We come back at halftime up (12), and we really set the tone right there. We got fouled and hit them and went inside to her like three straight times and she scored. She gets a little bit impatient. She just needs to let the game come to her, and I thought tonight she really did well in the third quarter.
“She has a really nice shot, and we were flashing her to the free throw line and she was catching it. Triton wasn’t guarding her there, so she was just turning and shooting. We scouted them and thought that it was an opening and didn’t go there in the first half, and then at halftime we thought we would go there second half.”
Triton was led in scoring by Brittany Wallace’s six points, while Allison Thacker and Aubrey Boardman each chipped in three. The Trojans fall to 1-3 with the loss, while Plymouth stays unbeaten so far at 3-0. The Pilgrims will host Bremen next Tuesday at 7:45 p.m., while Triton takes on South Central tonight at 8 p.m.
While Plymouth won the basketball game, the real winners were those individuals and organizations receiving assistance from United Way of Marshall County as donors gave more than $3200 to help support the non-profit group.
Donations were taken at the game, and members of both basketball teams collected pledges leading up to the contest, but the drive wasn’t organized by either the Plymouth or Triton school corporation or their basketball programs. It was Pilgrims junior point guard Barron who first conceived of and executed the idea in the hope that it would become an annual tradition between the two schools.
“What a classy young lady,” said Cox. “You’ve got a junior who is going to step up and do that sort of thing. That’s above and beyond the game, and that’s the most important thing that happened tonight because that’s about life and humanity. We’re just really proud of her that she led that and got that implemented. That was her. I signed the paper and approved it once she started all this, and it was Meagan Barron so she certainly deserves a lot of credit for all that.”

• PLYMOUTH 46, TRITON 15
At Plymouth
Score by quarters
T:     3    6  13  15
P:  12  18  31  46
TRITON: Hannah Downing 1 0-0 2, Aubrey Boardman 1 0-0 3, Allison Thacker 1 0-0 3, Sydney Gochenour 0 0-0 0, Emily Duff 0 0-0 0, Savannah Stutzman 0 0-0 0, Andrea Sellers 0 0-0 0, Shana Anderson 0 0-0 0, Lindsay Ganshorn 0 0-0 0, Megan Howdeshell 0 0-0 0, Amanda Miller 0 0-0 0, Brittany Wallace 3 0-0 6, Sarah Stichter 0 1-2 1. Totals: 6 1-2 15.
PLYMOUTH: Lauren Tanner 4 1-1 13, Andrea Shook 1 0-0 2, Chelsea Thoden 0 0-0 0, Nicole Scheetz 0 0-0 0, Maggie Tanner 0 0-0 0, Haley Smart 1 3-5 5, Meagan Barron 2 0-0 6, Amber Redinger 0 1-2 1, Ariel Renseberger 1 0-1 3, Erin Kinney 2 1-2 6, Marissa Green 5 0-0 10. Totals: 16 7-12 46.
3-point goals: Triton 2 (Boardman, Thacker), Plymouth 8 (L. Tanner 4, Barron 2, Rensberger, Kinney)
Fouls: Triton 8 (None), Plymouth 9 (None
Records: Plymouth 3-0, Triton 1-3
JV score: Plymouth 23, Triton 20, OT