AHSAA AREA TOURNEY: Trinity holds off Montgomery Academy to advance
Trinity defeated Montgomery Academy in Class 3A, Area 6 action on Wednesday. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
Montgomery Academy took Trinity’s best shot early, then rallied to take an eight-point lead late in the third quarter against the Wildcats in the opening round of the 3A Area 6 tournament.
“I thought we were a little impatient on offense and they were really solid on offense,” Trinity coach Matt Arrighi said. “Coach (Jeremy) Arant always has some good offensive sets and I thought they executed really well. We were just laboring on offense, couldn’t find a rhythm and a lot of it was because we weren’t driving enough. But credit the guys. The motto tonight was ‘just find a way.’ And that’s what they did.”
The Wildcats found a way, hitting 13 of 16 free throws in the final quarter to hold off a remarkable last-minute run by the Eagles to secure a 57-53 win and advance to the finals of the area tournament on Saturday at Catholic at 6 p.m.
Trinity, as the second seed, advanced to the sub-regional round in the process and will play either Dadeville or Reeltown on Tuesday at 6:30, but to get there the Wildcats had to overcome the Eagles’ defense.
“We really locked in defensively in the second half,” Arant said. “Some of that had to do with the fact that we executed really well offensively in the second quarter some stuff we’ve been working on the last five days. It allowed us to get our defense set. We’ve said all year when we get our defense set, we can really defend people and give them problems.”
Montgomery Academy didn’t score but nine points in the second quarter, but it was enough to take a 24-20 lead into the locker room as the MA defense held Trinity to a pair of second-quarter field goals and just two more for most of the third quarter.
The Wildcats were still trailing by six points with six minutes left when Montgomery Academy suddenly hit a lull against the Trinity defense, missing on three consecutive possessions. Sam McKee nailed a 3 pointer in the corner and suddenly the Wildcats were up 40-39 with 4:20 left.
“Normally, our team feeds off defensive stops,” Arrighi said. “Tonight, I felt like we got going with a couple of buckets that went in and that kind of fed our defensive energy.”
After Jamal Cooper hit a pair of free throws to put MA back on top, Andrew McNees hit a 3 pointer to trigger a 7-0 run that gave the Wildcats a six-point lead.
“They did a good job of making some shots,” Arant said. “They had a big 3, a banked 3 pointer from the top of the key that gave them the lead. They did a good job of defending us in the first stages of the fourth quarter.”
Down by six points with 72 seconds remaining, the Eagles staged a remarkable rally, trading free throws for 3 pointers, using a pair of 3 pointers by Cooper, another by Britton Kohn and a three-point play by Kohn to pull within two points with 6.5 seconds left and one final possession.
“They made some unbelievable shots,” Arrighi said. “BK hit two highly contested 3s where I felt like we were all over him. Jamal’s a great player and his biggest threat is driving and he throws in two 3s in the last couple of minutes, But our guys kept making free throws and found a way.”
Cooper raced downcourt, drew the defense to him with 2.7 seconds left, then fired a pass into the corner that was wide of Thomas Kirkham and bounced off of his hands and out of bounds.
“It really doesn’t happen very often, especially at the high school level,” Arant said. “I think in the last minute and a half, we made four 3s. Britton made a couple, Jamal made a couple and we were down two with two good shooters in each corner and we just couldn’t get it to them. I would have liked to have seen what would have happened if we could have got it to one of them.”
Jon Cole Portis led Trinity (16-7) with 13 points, followed by Parker Hughes with 12, Pruitt Lee with 10 and McNees with nine.
Kohn had 25 points and Cooper followed with 12 for MA, which ends the season at 8-11 after two COVID-19 interruptions.
“If I could describe this team in one word, it would be perseverance,” Arant said. “We missed the first month of the season, came back for a week, then missed two more weeks. As a coach, you have to make a decision: are you trying to get ready for a game or are you trying to do some things you would normally do when you have a couple of weeks? Looking back, I chose we’ve got to get ready to play a game and get our Xs and Os right and that was probably the wrong decision.”