For the second year in a row, the Trenton High School girls basketball team saw Gilman City in the opening round of the Gallatin Tournament. For the second year in a row, the final score was cringe-worthy.
Top-seeded Trenton picked up a 75-31 win over the eighth-seeded Hawks on Monday night, taking the first necessary step toward defending its Gallatin Tournament title from a year ago.
As was the case last year when Trenton bludgeoned Gilman City 78-10 in the opening round, unfortunate scheduling swelled the score. Trenton’s junior varsity was booked at home on Monday as well, meaning Trenton didn’t have much to put on the floor outside of its varsity regulars.
Trenton raced out to a 23-6 first quarter lead behind the duo of Maci Moore and Lexi Whitaker. The two would be a force all night, pacing Trenton with 31 and 20 points, respectively.
Gilman City put up more of a fight in the second quarter as Jolee Ward scored 11 of her team-high 19 points in the frame. Five of Ward’s second-half point total came from the free throw line as the Bulldogs put the Hawks on the stripe seven times in the quarter.
With a renewed focus on not fouling, Trenton limited Gilman City to just 11 points the rest of the game, putting the Hawks on the line just four more times in the second half. Trenton’s offense meanwhile, continued to hammer away, tacking on 28 more points in the third quarter before really easing off in the fourth, scoring just six more.
“I thought our energy was really good early and then we kind of let up a little in the second quarter,” Trenton coach Kameron Cool said. “In the third quarter we turned it up a notch and worked really hard. We started running the floor better. Really, we just have to have that energy all of the time.”
Moore added 16 rebounds to her 31 points and Whitaker finished with seven steals in addition to her career-high 20 points.
Whitaker was limited to just two points in the season-opening loss to East Buchanan, but Cool feels like Monday’s game is a better representation of what Whitaker will be for the Bulldogs this season.
“We know what (Whitaker) can do,” Cool said. “She is very capable, very aggressive. That East Buch game, I think, is going to be an outlier for her. She wasn’t on the floor a lot. We know what she is capable of and she can be a really tough scorer for us.”
Behind the duo of Moore and Whitaker, Chandler Lynch finished with seven points, Teya Cooksey had six and Kendall Crowley finished with four. Trenton also got three points and eight assists from McKayla Blackburn and two points from Gracyn Rongey rounded out the Trenton total.
For Gilman City (0-2), Ward added 11 rebounds to her 19 points while Zoe Williamson scored six points and Sidney Gibson finished with three points and five rebounds. Bailey Williamson had two points and Caitlynn McCrary finished with one.
With the win, Trenton moved to 1-1 overall on the season. The Bulldogs will battle Maysville or Polo in Thursday’s semifinal at 4:30 p.m.
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