The scene was storybook worthy.
Ainsley Tolson dribbled out the clock then fell to the floor. She was quickly covered by a teammate, then another and another. By the end, the entire Trenton roster was in on the pile-up just inside the three-point line at the south end of the Lee’s Summit High School gymnasium.
The Trenton Bulldogs are headed to the final four.
“This means so much to us,” Whitley Richman, the team’s lone senior, said. “We’ve practiced all of these months, played all of these games and put in so much extra time. It has finally paid off.”
Trenton punched its ticket to the pinnacle of high school basketball in Missouri – The Show-Me Showdown – for the first time in school history with a hard-fought 33-31 victory over Southeast High School of Kansas City in a four-quarter war on Saturday in the Class 3 State Quarterfinals.
“The girls have just bought in,” Trenton Head Coach Brian Upton said. “We started saying ‘Final Four’ at the end of practice probably a couple of months ago. We just felt like we had some momentum going and could get some big things done. This is just a big day for us. I don’t really have the words to describe it, but it’s a great feeling.”
In Southeast, Trenton faced one of its toughest tests to date, The Knights featured an athletic roster with three players topping 6-0 in height. The Bulldogs were hardly intimidated, however, and opened the game on an improbable 10-0 run, taking the only double digit lead any team would have all afternoon.
Southeast was able to run the floor some following the initial Trenton outburst and responded with a 10-0 run of its own to tie the game with 1:39 to go in the opening frame. Trenton would strike last, however, taking a 12-10 lead into quarter number two.
From that point the game fell into a friendlier pace for the Bulldogs, who were able to slow things down considerably. Trenton’s defense was its usual self, limiting Southeast to just eight points in the second quarter. The Bulldogs found scoring to be tough as well, however, and the two squads went into the locker rooms tied at 18-18 at halftime.
“(Southeast) is a really good team,” Upton said. “They have two really special players in 21 (Breon Gunnels) and 40 (Da’Briauna Bables) and we were spending all of our time trying to stop them. We didn’t necessarily do a great job at it, but we did a good enough job.
“We struggled to score but, when things didn’t go our way, we just hung in there and kept fighting and kept battling. That’s just the way this group is. They are grinders.”
In the second half, the two squads went back and forth. Southeast held a four-point edge late in the third quarter, which would represent the largest lead of the half. Trenton trailed 25-23 entering the final frame after a buzzer-beating put-back by Southeast to close the half. Trenton would lead 28-25 after a big three by Ainsley Tolson with six and a half minutes to play, but the Bulldogs found themselves trailing 31-30 with just two minutes left.
Southeast would not score again, though. Trenton took the lead on a pair of Mykah Hurley free throws with 50 seconds left and a free-throw by Tolson with 15 seconds left would be the final point of the game as Trenton went on to collect the win by the 33-31 margin.
Richman would lead Trenton, scoring 17 points despite drawing a double team from two players topping 6-0 for most of the game.
“I was going to go out and try to do as much as I could because it could have possibly been my last game ever as a Trenton Bulldog,” Richman said. “I didn’t want that to happen so I went out and played the best I could. This was the first time all year I had to play two girls of that height and they were big and strong. It was definitely a different atmosphere, a different type of game, but I feel like we handled it well.”
Richman scored eight of her points in the first quarter, helping Trenton establish early that they could hang with the larger squad. She also pulled down a team-high 12 rebounds and blocked a shot. The Trenton senior was nails from the charity stripe as well, connecting on seven-of-eight free throws.
“You will never meet another girl who is more happy-go-lucky and more concerned about other people than Whitley,” Upton said. “It is amazing. She’s had great games like this one and she has had games where it has been rough, but you can’t tell it on her face. She was so special in the first quarter. I remember turning to (Assistant Coach) John (Cowling) and saying ‘if this is the Whitley we are getting tonight, Southeast is in trouble.’ She was really, really good.”
Behind Richman, Trenton got 10 points and two steals from Ainsley Tolson and four points and seven rebounds from Sidney Lynch. Mykah Hurley had two points on the free throws that gave Trenton its final lead and also added two assists.
Now Trenton heads to the Show-Me Showdown in Columbia for the first time in school history. The Bulldogs head to state with a 27-3 record, the best mark in school history.
“We started talking early in the year about the four things you had to have in order to have a special season,” Upton said. “You have to have good players, you have to have good health, you have to have a good path and you have to have a little bit of good luck. We have good players. We haven’t had the greatest of health, but we have gotten through. We had a good path and we have had some good fortune along the way.
Trenton will take on Whitfield (24-7) on Thursday in the Hearnes Center in Columbia at noon. Lutheran North (22-8) will face Strafford (31-0) in the other semifinal following the Trenton-Whitfield game, with the winners playing for the state title on Saturday.