Fenton rides strong defense, shooting to regional crown

Fenton's girls basketball team needed to do two things to capture its Class 3A regional championship title Thursday night against Chicago Clark.

The first thing the Bison needed to do was play solid team defense. The second aspect was shoot the ball well from behind the arc.

The Bison did both to beat Clark 53-37.

Not only did the Bison (16-15) hold the Eagles to 37 points, Fenton also forced Clark into 27 turnovers for the game. In the first three minutes of the game, Fenton jumped out to a 10-2 lead as the Eagles had 4 turnovers in their first 5 possessions. The Bison never trailed.

"When we play defense, we can play with a lot of people," Fenton coach Tim Anderson said. "We knew who we needed to stop tonight to be successful. We knew what we needed to do tonight to win and we got it done."

Fenton is not the biggest team so they have to play good team defense and rely on shooting the ball from distance.

The Bison shot the ball well from behind the arc as they went 8 of 21. The biggest thing for Fenton was Taylor Pugliese and Lindsay Speiden hitting some 3-pointers early in the first quarter.

"When we start off hot with our shooting, I think everyone on our team gets confidence," Pugliese said, who hit three 3-pointers in the game. "Once our shots start falling I think everyone on our team thinks they can score. When we are cold from behind the arc we struggle. Tonight we were able to knock some down."

Pugliese scored a game-high 15 points while Dylin Coons and Speiden chipped in with 10 and 9 points, respectively.