Three’s a crowd?

Not when it comes to basketballs congregating in the West Holmes Lady Knights net, launched from downtown, which was a common sight as West Holmes was on its way to destroying Clear Fork on Thursday, Jan. 26 at the Dungeon.

While the 52-19 blowout win wasn’t a battle, it appeared as though Paiten Strother and Rachelle Morrison were waging a duel of their own in who could drain the most three-pointers in the contest, and that turned into the most highly anticipated test of the evening.

When both players were pulled from the game early in the fourth quarter, Strother had hammered home five triples and Morrison hit on four to lead West Holmes to the easy Ohio Cardinal Conference victory.

“We knew we had good shooters, and they are starting to believe they are good shooters now, and they are starting to believe that they are capable of knocking those shots down,” said West Holmes coach Lisa Patterson. “Paiten and Rachelle are both shooting over 40 percent from threes for us right now, and it is fun to watch. Plus, it excites people, it excites the teammates, it excites the crowd.”

Strother started the three-point barrage to open the game, and the Lady Knights bolted to a 7-0 lead. The Colts got back to within 7-4, but Strother struck again from deep, and Mallori Vess split a pair of free throws to put the Lady Knights up 11-4 after one.

That seven point first quarter deficit would be the best news of the night for Clear Fork. That’s because the hot-shooting duo hit from downtown on the first three trips down the floor for West Holmes to begin the second. Morrison hit back-to-back jacks, then Strother drained her third to make it 20-4 West Holmes.

After Emily Swank hit a trey for Clear Fork, the Lady Knights went on a 13-0 run that extended into the third quarter. In that stretch Morrison tied the personal duel with a three-pointer, then Strother struck again for the fourth time. Morrison ended the massive run that left the Lady Knights up 33-7 with her fourth, and the only exciting contest was tied at four. The other game between the Lady Knights and the Colts was long over.

In the third quarter, Emily Molnar and Alex Starr both hit triples, and in between Strother hit her fifth and final long ball of the night, winning the one-on-one contest with Morrison.

While Morrison and Strother were busy matching long-distance hoists, the rest of the team was diligently shutting down the youthful Colts.

Coming into the contest, one of the Lady Knights goals was to hold the Colts under 20 points. Patterson said that the other goals for West Holmes was to outrebound Clear Fork and to commit 12 or fewer turnovers.

Check, check and check on all counts.

“Goal met,” replied Patterson to each count. Solid all around.

“We are so inexperienced, when they took us out of our offense, we couldn’t adjust,” said Les Hauenstein, Colts coach. “We hurried up and did things we normally don’t do. We’ve been playing a lot better, but we just aren’t ready for West Holmes and Wooster yet. We’re so young that we just haven’t learned to play against that kind of defense yet.”

Patterson said that any thoughts of looking past Clear Fork, a team that they clearly outclassed in every phase of the game, were long gone after a lackluster game against Ashland in which they struggled to put away a team they should have dominated.

“I think that game served as a wake up call,” said Patterson. “One game at a time. We’ve got to do this one game at a time.”

If that approach produces this kind of results, it’s a good bet that it will be the team’s mantra the rest of the season.