High school basketball in Trenton is officially done for another year after the Bull-dogs were defeated 69-37 by Mid-Buchanan on Tuesday night at the Class 3, District 16 Tournament in Gower. The boys’ loss came one night after the Lady Bulldogs were knocked out of the tournament by South Harrison.
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Trenton was a large underdog coming into its match-up with second-seeded Mid-Buchanan, but Trenton was in the game early. The Bulldogs trailed just 19-12 after the first quarter, but Mid-Buchanan took control of the game in the second quarter with a 28-9 run. At halftime, the Bulldogs found themselves in a 47-21 hole.
There would be no digging out of that hole, either, as Mid-Buchanan outscored Trentons 14-9 in the third quarter and 8-7 in the fourth.
“It really came down to pressure,” Head Coach Jeremy Austin said. “They really put a lot of pressure on us and we didn’t handle it well. You have to give them a lot of credit because they are outstanding. I could really see them being a legitimate threat to Cameron, the one-seed.”
Trenton was led by Colby Larson, who scored a team-high nine points in the game. Keegan McGinness finished with eight points and two steals in the game and Austin Taul had seven points and two steals. Senior Dakota Banks closed out his career with a five-point, three-assist night and Austin Norris scored three points while dishing out three assists. Hunter Treadwell and senior Jeremiah Hamilton rounded out the Trenton total with three and two points respectively.
“I thought we did have some highlights,” Austin said. “We moved the ball around pretty well, keeping everyone involved. We shot the ball well at times when we got open looks, but we didn’t manufacture very many open looks. We ran the floor well, but that is a negative as much as it is a positive because they wanted us to run the floor. That forced us into several quick shots and set them up for their fast breaks. I thought our defense picked up in the second half and that was a major point of emphasis at halftime.”
The 32-point loss gave the Bulldogs a final record on the season of 7-18.
“Overall, we are definitely going to miss our seniors Dakota and Jeremiah,” Austin said. “They didn’t get to have a senior night due to inclement weather, but they went out there and made the most of their opportunity. They both went out and scored some points for us. They are good kids and not guys we are going to be able to easily replace.”
Despite the record, Austin felt the team made huge strides on the court this year.
“I thought we made big strides this season,” Austin said. “You can’t just go from nothing to something overnight. Just like anything else you have to go through all the steps in order to become successful. It would have been great to skip a step and just jump up to a winning season right away, but in reality that’s not how it works. We spent a little time with the boys the other day, looking at old tapes from last year and comparing them with this year. Last year we were never even in games, we didn’t even have a chance. The games that we won, we won, but the games that we lost weren’t even close. We had zero chance and generally folded by halftime. That wasn’t the case this year. This year was completely different. We managed to come back many, many times and stay right there and fight against some really good teams. We could keep it to a 15- to 20-point ballgame just by not giving up and that is against the best teams we played. We like to look at it as major improvements up and down the board from individual players to how we handled things as a whole.”