Had it not been for one bad quarter, the Trenton Bulldogs boys basketball team may have sprung an upset on Tuesday night in the opening round of the Class 3, District 16 Basketball Tournament. As it turned out, however, one bad quarter was all it took to dash Trenton’s hopes of a district victory as they fell to third-seeded East Buchanan 55-41.
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Trenton came out flat as East Buchanan ran out to a 19-3 first quarter lead. The Bulldogs would go on to outscore East Buchanan from that point on, but the damage done was too much to overcome.
“We played a solid game, it’s just in the first quarter we looked kind of nervous,” Bulldogs’ Head Coach Jeremy Austin said. “We made some mental errors and we struggled getting into an offense and actually running it. Defensively, we did pretty well, but 19 points is more than we want to give up. That being said, you are going to give up points to these guys. They are a very good basketball team.”
Trenton outscored East Buchanan 15-12 in the second quarter, but the Bulldogs lost the points gained in the third quarter as East Buchanan went on a 16-11 run. Trenton would bounce back in the fourth, closing the game with a 12-8 run to outscore East Buchanan 38-36 over the final three quarters, but lost the game by 14 points.
“The rest of the ballgame was a whole different story,” Austin said. “We outscored them basically the rest of the way. We won two out of four quarters, but that is just not enough against a quality team like East Buchanan.”
Leading the way for the Bulldogs was Colby Larson, who had 12 points and five rebounds. Austin Norris finished with 11 points, five rebounds and two assists. Trenton also got six points, five rebounds and two blocks from Brennon Vandevender and four points from Wilson Utley. Keegan McGinness and Chanse Houghton each had three points, with McGinness adding two assists, and Charlie Hoffman rounded out the Bulldogs’ scoring effort with two points.
With the loss the Trenton boys finished the season with a record of 12-14.
“I think these guys had a huge year,” Austin said. “You always want to win more basketball games, but in the situation we are in here at Trenton, we have to get kids used to winning at the upper level again and I think we took a huge step in that direction this year. These guys, these three seniors especially, have seen the whole show. They have seen when we were so bad we couldn’t even play ball with teams to when we could play ball with them sometimes to when we could play ball with them most of the times and now, when we can play ball with them and win games. We had more wins here this year than any other season in the past nine years and I think we are poised to do even better next year.”
Trenton loses three key seniors in McGinness, Vandevender and Norris, but will return this season’s sophomore class, which will have a full year of experience under its belt, as well as leading scorer Colby Larson, who will be a senior.
“Next year will be great,” Austin said. “We are going to spend a lot of time playing over the summer because these guys have got to get used to playing with each other. Our sophomores play really well together. Now we have to get it to where they play really well with some of our seniors we will have next year. We will be glad to get (Hunter) Treadwell back and we know what Colby can do. You put all that together with a talented freshmen class that will be coming up and it makes for a pretty bright future for us.”