Troy takes home opener with win over Belmont

Published 3:00 am Thursday, November 17, 2016

 Photo/troy athletics The Troy Trojans defeated the Belmont Bruins 91-74 in their home onpener on Wednesday afternoon.

Photo/troy athletics
The Troy Trojans defeated the Belmont Bruins 91-74 in their home onpener on Wednesday afternoon.

The Lady Trojans defeated the Belmont Bruins 91-74 in a midweek matinee at Trojan Arena.

The Trojans improved to 1-1 on the season while picking up their first win at home while at the same time avenging a 102-93 loss in overtime a year ago.

“This was an incredible win today,” said Trojans head coach Chandra Rigby. “This team beat us in overtime last year in a high scoring game. They are picked to win their conference this year and for us to take this win is incredible.”

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The Trojans shot 40 percent in the first half and led the majority of the first two quarters. After leading by one point at 15-14 at the end of the first quarter, the Trojans embarked on a 11-0 run to increase their lead to 20-14.

The Trojans led by as many as nine points in the second quarter and took a 30-23 lead into halftime.

Jayla Chills scored 11 of the team’s 30 first half points on five of 10 shooting.

The Trojans came out on fire in the second half, draining three, three pointers and outscored the Bruins 15-5 early in the third quarter, increasing their lead to 45-28 with 6:15 remaining.

“During halftime Coach Neal told us not to get complacent,” said Trojan Jayla Chills. “We came out with the same mentality and attacked.”

The Trojans began the second half converting on four of there first five three pointers. They outscored their opponent 35-16 and took a commanding 65-39 lead into the fourth quarter.

The Bruins got to within 11 points in the fourth quarter, but Troy’s outside shooting was too much to handle.

After shooting 1-10 from behind the arc in the first half, the Trojans went on to shoot 8-23.

The Trojans also took care of business in the paint on Wednesday, outscoring the Bruins 32-28.

The Trojans had three players score in double figures, led by Chills who scored 21 points on nine of 20 shooting.

“This has been a long time for Jayla,” Rigby said. “She was such a scorer in high school. We have been waiting for her to do something like this and now I think she is back in the saddle. We will see a lot more of this from her.

“They gave us a game plan to go by and we came out here and tried our best,” Chills said. “It has been a long time coming for me, but I pushed through it.”

Hannah Day and Dajia Williams finished with 12 and 11.

The Trojans will be back in action on Monday when they host Thomas University in Dothan beginning at 6 p.m.

“We need to rest tomorrow,” Rigby said. “We are going to start on our scouts the next day and we look forward to playing in Dothan.”