Savannah Harweger, Hannah Sabotin and Sydney Jaynes combined for 58 points and 45 rebounds to spark the Trinity Lutheran girls basketball team to a 62-47 win over county and sectional rival Crothersville Saturday night in the Bollinger Athletic Complex.

Harweger and Jaynes were varsity starters for the Cougars last season, but Trinity Coach Mike Lang was pleased the way Sabotin stepped up her game with 16 points and a school record 23 rebounds.

“We wanted to establish another scorer out there,” he said. “A lot of people say this was Hannah’s coming out party. We see it every day in practice. It’s just a matter of getting her court time and getting her acclimated to the game of basketball. She’s got a lot of rough edges and inexperience, but her hustle is off the chart.

“We told Savannah at the beginning of the game ‘play downhill and attack,’ and that’s exactly what she did. She attacked, and Crothersville has good shooters. She did a great job on (Nihna) Burton.”

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The Tigers got off to a fast start with Piper Hensley’s second basket of the game putting her team up 6-2 at the 5:30-mark.

Trinity came back with a 7-0 run with Harweger beginning the rally with a free throw and ending it with a layup at 2:30 to put the Cougars in the lead for good at 9-6.

Sabotin had four field goals and six rebounds, and Harweger and Jaynes had five points each in the first period as the Cougars built their lead to 20-12. Jaynes brought a loud roar from the Trinity fans with a half-court shot at the buzzer.

Crothersville coach Kevin Hensley said his team had too many breakdowns on defense that led to wide open shots for the Cougars.

“Our defense let us down tonight, tremendously let us down,” Hensley said. “We weren’t getting the rotations right. We just acted like we hadn’t played all year from what I’ve seen we’re capable of playing.

“We saw too much individualism. There wasn’t a team there. It was individuals. We was more worried about, ‘I was going to stop my man, you get your won man,’ that type of thing. We weren’t smart with the ball at all.”

A rebound basket by Sabotin boosted Trinity’s lead to 27-17 at 5:25 of the second period. Jaynes pulled down five rebounds to go along with a basket, and Harweger had three baskets and two free throws in the second period to spark Trinity to a 34-24 lead at the half.

Coach Hensley said he felt his good about his team trailing 27-22 following a basket by Burton with two minutes remaining in the half, before Harwager made a basket, the Cougars forced a turnover and Kailene Cockerham followed with another basket and the lead quickly reached nine points at 31-22.

A basket by Jaynes late in the period put the Cougars on top 34-24 at the break.

Trinity shot 15 for 34 from the floor in the first half while the Tigers made only 9 of 39 shots during that time.

A rebound basket by Jaynes three minutes into the third period gave Trinity a 40-29 lead, and the Cougars (2-2) were up 52-36 entering the fourth period.

Harweger topped all players with 23 points and had nine rebounds, and Jaynes had a double-double with 19 points and 13 rebounds as the Cougars held a 45-30 advantage in that department.

“We’re happy to come out of here with a victory and play to our potential a little bit,” Lang said. “The thing is we maintained tonight. We never allowed them to have a run to allow them back into the game. We kept our distance and it allowed us to get quite a few people into the game.

“I’m just really pleased with the job Maddie Bell did defensively, and really it’s a great team effort. The guards moved the ball, they saw the open player and we took advantage of it. Two things we stressed in practice this week we wanted to get to the free-throw line, but we’ve to to do a better job finishing at the free-throw line (7 of 24), and we want to control the boards and win the 50-50 balls and I think we did a pretty good job of that. When we’ve got Sydney and Hannah both going to the glass I like our chances of coming down with the rebound.”

Hensley topped the Tigers (4-4) with 13 points, Burton scored 12 and Riley 10. Riley and Burton both had 10 rebounds.

“We’ve got to become a better defensive team,” coach Hensley said.

The Tigers will have all week to practice their defense, as they don’t play again until Nov. 29 at South Decatur.

The Cougars will host Southwestern (Shelby) Saturday.