Championship Bids Don’t Pan Out For Trenton Teams

The Trenton Bulldog basketball teams didn’t fare as well as they would have liked on championship Saturday at the Hamilton Tournament. The Lady Bulldogs were defeated by Lathrop 53-36 and the Trenton boys fell to Gallatin 64-56.
Lady Bulldogs
The Trenton girls jumped out to an 8-6 first quarter lead, but Lathrop would jump in front in the second quarter and pull away the rest of the night. The Lady Mules outscored Trenton 20-8 in the second quarter and 22-12 in the third quarter, pulling out to a comfortable lead that they had no trouble holding onto in the final frame.
“Offensively, we had trouble all night,” Lady Bulldogs’ Head Coach Brian Upton said. “We didn’t handle the pressure man (defense) very well at all. Defensively we played well at times. In the end, though, their height inside – they had a 6-3 girl and a 5-11 girl – gave us trouble. They also had a good night from the outside.”
Trenton was led by the trio of Makaila Capeder, Whitley Richman and Cassidy Cotton, all of whom scored eight points. Capeder added five rebounds. McKinley Hurley had seven points, four assists and three steals and Ally Ockenfels scored three points. Lexi Tolson had two points to round out the Trenton effort and also picked up five rebounds, three assists and two steals.
“I was proud that we played really hard and we never quit,” Upton said. “We just got outplayed by a team that played better than us, tonight.”
With the loss, Trenton fell to 14-6 overall on the season.
Bulldogs
The Trenton boys also held a first-quarter lead, jumping out to a 15-13 advantage in the first frame. The two teams would battle through the first three quarters with Gallatin leading 29-26 at halftime and 41-40 entering the final frame. Things went awry for Trenton in the fourth quarter as Gallatin extended the lead and forced Trenton to foul. Gallatin would hit 17-of-24 free-throw attempts in the final frame, pulling away to win by 12 points.
“It’s always tough losing to anybody, especially when it’s a championship game,” Bulldogs’ Head Coach Jeremy Austin said. “The biggest thing was we didn’t play very good defense. We were very lackadaisical, we were slow and we weren’t very aggressive. They hit a lot of open shots. I think they shot 55 percent in the second half and that is too high of a percentage to give up to a good team like Gallatin. They played very well. This was the fourth time we played them and we have split with them. Honestly, if we knew we could only win two of those games, then we won the two we would have picked, but it’s still unfortunate.”
Trenton was led by Chris Flowers, who scored 17 points to go with eight rebounds and a pair of blocked shots. Chase Tolson added 13 points, eight assists and two steals and Cree Mullenix had 11 points, eight rebounds and two assists. Trenton also got eight points, four assists and two steals from Colton Neff and five points and two assists from Chris Kurtz. Kail McCarter added two points to round out the Bulldogs’ total.
“We will get back in the gym and there will be a pretty significant influence on stopping the other team,” Austin said. “That and taking advantage of the things that are going our way. Getting the ball inside to Flowers needs to be a higher priority than it is sometimes. So we will work on that and improve the defense and be ready for Tuesday night.”
The Bulldogs dropped to 12-8 overall on the season with the loss.
Both Trenton teams are scheduled to play host to Lawson on Tuesday, weather permitting. Action tips off at 6 p.m. with the girls’ game and the boys’ contest will follow.