The Merrillville Pirates forced 10 third-quarter turnovers and outscored the Chesterton Trojans 44-19 in the second half en route to a 69-42 Duneland Athletic Conference victory Saturday night.

“The thing you were most concerned about was their quickness and speed,” Chesterton coach Jack Campbell said. “Their goal is to pressure and wear out your ball-handler and then put a lot of pressure on your first pass. Passes we normally make in practice don’t get through against them.”

After the Trojans scored the first four points of the quarter to take a 27-25 lead, the Pirates defense held Chesterton without a basket for 3:24 and scored 16 consecutive points for a 41-27 lead.

“They had a two- or three-minute spurt there where we turned the ball over against their pressure and they got easy baskets,” Campbell said. “We actually thought they’d turn up the heat earlier.”

A three-pointer by Caroline Puntillo stopped the stretch, but the Trojans never scored more than four consecutive points the rest of the night. Puntillo finished with 20 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the field.

“Caroline was really good making shots tonight,” Campbell said.

The Trojans and Pirates traded baskets throughout the first quarter before a 6-0 run by Chesterton put them up 16-12 after one period. A late second quarter 6-0 run by Merrillville gave them a 25-23 lead at the halftime break.

“The kids played a great first half,” Campbell said. “You can’t dwell on what you didn’t do.”

Chesterton hit on 15-of-39 shots (39 percent) from the field, while Merrillville hit on 27-of-58 (47 percent). The Pirates also outrebounded the Trojans 47-18.

“We didn’t do a very good job blocking out again and got dominated on the boards,” Campbell said. “We didn’t crash the boards ourselves because we wanted to get back on defense, but their offensive rebounds were just too much.”

Merrillville (12-13-24-20)

Victoria Gaines 12-16 3-6 27, Jaz Talley 3-7 0-0 6, Myranda Harris 3-10 2-2 8, AJ Downs 2-5 2-4 6, Amber Sturdivant 2-3 3-6 7, Daryian Morris 2-6 3-4 8, Kristin McGee 1-1 0-0 2, Darian Patton 2-6 0-0 4, Anjelika Peppers 0-4 0-0 0, Erika McClinton 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 27-58 13-22 69.

Chesterton (16-7-11-8)

Sarah Richards 1-9 0-4 0, Kelsey Conway 0-0 4-6 4, Hannah McCafferty 2-4 1-2 5, Caroline Puntillo 9-15 0-1 20, Jocelyn Lipscomb 2-3 2-4 7, McKenzie Sullivan 0-0 0-0 0, Kassidy Scott 0-3 2-2 2, Haley Sekula 0-1 0-0 0, Kelly Braun 1-2 0-2 2, Kayla Malackowski 0-1 0-0 0, Mary Mochen 0-1 0-0 0, Jordan Wadding 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 15-39 9-21 42.

3-point field goals: Merrillville 2-6 (Harris 0-1, Morris 1-1, McGee 1-1, Patton 0-2, Peppers 0-1); Chesterton 3-9 (Richards 0-1, McCafferty 0-1, Puntillo 2-3, Lipscomb 1-1, Scott 0-2, Malackowski 0-1). Rebounds: Merrillville 47 (Gaines 9); Chesterton 18 (Puntillo 6). Assists: Merrillville 8 (Gaines 3); Chesterton 8 (Puntillo 2). Steals: Merrillville 11 (Downs 3, Harris 3); Chesterton 2 (Richards 1, Sekula 1).

The Chesterton junior varsity outscored Merrillville 11-3 in the fourth quarter to blow open a close game and won 33-19 Friday night.

Lauren Kusbel led the Trojans offensively with eight points, while McKenzie Sullivan, Hailee Norton and Natalie Petro each scored four points. Jordan Wadding and Kayla Malackowski tallied three points each.

Rounding out the scoring were Tara Schnadenberg, Abby Brown and Xaundra Rodriguez with two points apiece. Raven Bach scored one point in the win.

Posted 12/3/2102