Trenton Girls Top Hornets In Three-For-All Battle

On a night when the Hamilton Hornets knocked down a three-pointer on their first possession, triggering an avalanche of teddy bears from the stands, it became apparent pretty quickly that the Trenton High School girls basketball team was going to need to be sharp from the outside to keep down a team it had already defeated twice previously.
After the bears were scooped up off the court – they will be donated to Children’s Mercy Hospital – and the two schools traded two pointers, Ashten Whitaker let a three-pointer fly that splashed home and triggered one of Trenton’s more prolific outside shooting performances to date. The Bulldogs would splash home nine three-pointers in all, defeating Hamilton 70-57.
On Senior Night, it was fitting that Whitaker – Trenton’s only senior player – started the barrage of triples.
“I don’t know if it got us started or got us on fire, but then Mykah (Hurley) came out and hit some and Ainsley (Tolson) hit some and Salem (Croy) hit some,” Whitaker said. “I think it just maybe started a fire and we were all like ‘oh, let’s shoot a three and let’s hit it’.”
All totaled, Trenton was 9-for-23 from downtown (39 percent), continuing a recent stretch that has seen Trenton get hotter and hotter from outside. Trenton poses a strong test no matter what, but when the Bulldogs are stepping up and hitting three-pointers like this, it becomes a nightmare for opposing teams – as Hamilton found out.
“We’ve seen a lot of man defense lately and I just thought eventually we would see a zone and tonight we did,” Trenton Head Coach Brian Upton said. “Hopefully teams will see that we can shoot it a little bit. It’s a nice weapon, but we can’t rely on it because it comes and goes. Sometimes you can get a little three-point happy, but when you are shooting it good, you are shooting it good.”
Trenton would need those threes as it turned out as Hamilton countered with nine threes of its own, seven of which came from guard Nora Ford. Ford would lead all scorers in the game with 31 points. Her performance came at an opportune time for Hamilton, which was down a couple of starters due to illness.
“Sometimes you let down a little bit when the other team is missing a couple of players and you think this game will go a certain way because they don’t have a couple of starters,” Upton said. “All it did was elevate the game of a couple of other players, mainly Nora Ford. The last time we played (Hamilton), she was one-for-11 on threes and tonight I think she was seven-for-12 or something. It’s kind of the ying and yang of basketball, it eventually averages out.”
Had it not been for Ford, this one wouldn’t have been close. Trenton led 20-16 after one quarter – one in which each team had four three-pointers by the four-minute mark. But, Trenton began to show its dominance in the second quarter, pushing the advantage to 39-23 by halftime. The Bulldogs would lead by as many as 20 points in the third quarter before Ford nailed three three-pointers to draw Hamilton to within 12. The lead would bounce between 12 and 16 points from there until the end with Trenton taking the game by 13 points.
“Coach Upton actually kept saying get the ball into the high post so we could get the open look out on the wing,” said Croy, who had 15 points, hitting three triples in the game. “We’ve been working in practice on throwing it inside and then kicking it out for the shot, so I think that helped. We knew they were probably going to have a better night shooting that the last time we played them so we just had to respond somehow. Sometimes it’s Maci (Moore) inside and sometimes it is us hitting shots. It just depends on the night.”
For a majority of the first half when the threes were flying, the game’s pace was as quick as or quicker than any Trenton has been in all season. A combination of the pace and Ford’s shooting allowed Hamilton to finish with 57 points, the highest total produced against Trenton this season. The Bulldogs didn’t seem to mind the pace however, raking up 70 points of their own.
“We like to get up and down the court, there is no problem with that,” Upton said. “We are just as content with having 10 or 15 passes before we shoot to get the shot that we want, though. That’s a nice combination to have – I think we can get up and down the court and I think we can play half court. I think we are multi-faceted.”
Trenton was led in the win by Hurley, who had 20 points and three assists. Croy added her 15 points, five rebounds and two assists and Moore finished with 13 points, six rebounds and two steals. Tolson was also in double figures, going for 12 points and six assists. It marked the second game in a row all four of those players were in double figures for Trenton.
The Bulldogs also got four points, six rebounds and three assists from Sidney Lynch and three points and two assists each from Lexi and Ashten Whitaker.
“Ashten is a team leader,” Upton said. “It isn’t always in points, rebounds or assists, but she has the intangibles. The girls get along with her great and she is focused, she is intense. The other night we were playing in Cameron and her eyes are locked in on whoever she is guarding. We were up by 30 points and she is bent down on her girls. She is an intense player and she has had a good career. She has lettered varsity all four years and she has had her moments where she has started and where she hasn’t, but she has always been a very key asset. Obviously last year, she was a big part of the reason why we got down to the final four, stepping in for Salem when she got hurt. This year her leadership has been outstanding. I’m just really proud to have her on our team and thankful for the part that she plays.”
Whitaker hopes to have several more games with her teammates this season as Trenton enters district play next week, but following the final home game of her career, Trenton’s lone senior took a moment to reflect.
“I’ve been playing with these girls since I was about six or seven years old,” Ashten Whitaker said. “So, it has been really special to go on this journey with all of them. It’s going to be hard not playing with them and seeing them play without me, but I just hope that they will be successful. I just love playing with them.”
Whitaker and the Bulldogs closed the regular season with a school record for regular-season wins. At 24-1, Trenton is the top seed in next week’s Class 3, District 16 Tournament, at Hamilton. Trenton faces South Harrison at 6 p.m. on Monday.