The Trenton High School boys’ basketball team looked like a team that had exhausted itself the night before in a buzzer-beating victory. The Polo Panthers, however, were not a team that was up to the task of pulling an upset.
Trenton overcame a slow start to rout Polo on the road Tuesday night, winning 62-30.
Trenton had some issues early on, but still had a 14-8 lead after a quarter of play. Trenton pushed that advantage to 28-15 by halftime. Any hopes Polo had of mounting a comeback were dashed in the third quarter as the Bulldogs really caught their stride. Trenton went on a 26-7 run to put the game out of reach. In the fourth period, the Bulldogs were on cruise control, holding the 32-point advantage through to the end for another Grand River Conference victory.
“We started slow,” Bulldogs’ Head Coach Jeremy Austin said. “We still scored some points there in the first quarter, but we started pretty slow. I think in the last two minutes of the second quarter and first five minutes of the third quarter, though, it went from a reasonably close ballgame to not close at all. That was our defense taking the ball out of their hands, pushing it up the floor and scoring. We hit some outside shots there too and that was really the difference.”
Trenton was led by its senior trio of Spencer Harris, Corbyn Guile and Connor Cotton. Harris had a game-high 22 points and has scored over 20 points in four of Trenton’s last five games. He has 105 points total in those five games combined.
Behind Harris, Guile had 21 points and Cotton scored 12. Four points for Carson Radcliff and three from Lathan Croy rounded out Trenton’s total.
“Our three seniors were all in double digits and they rebounded really well also,” Austin said. “They work very well together. On a night when we were pretty tired coming off the emotional game the night before those three guys were able to pick everybody up. I expect them to be dragging a little bit in practice tomorrow, but they have that experience and they know what they need to do. Hopefully they can just continue to get it done the way they have been doing.”
Trenton moved to 10-5 overall on the season and 4-0 within the Grand River Conference with the victory.
The Bulldogs will play host to South Harrison in another GRC contest on Thursday. Action tips off at 6 p.m. with the girls’ contest and the boys will follow.
Junior Varsity
The Trenton junior varsity boys’ team had a nice bounce-back win in a two-quarter contest against the Polo JV earlier in the night. The Bulldogs’ second unit took the victory, 29-14.
“We came out with a lot of energy,” Trenton JV Coach Kameron Cool said. “We did a lot of things well and can hopefully build on that kind of effort.”
Trenton had a very balanced scoring attack led by Dalton Burchett with eight points. Kade Ockenfels and Radcliff had seven points each, Isaac Harris had five and Jarren Whitney had two.
The win pushed the JV boys’ record to 7-1 overall.