Trinity ousts defending champ Notre Dame in 2OT thriller

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – In the fourth meeting between the teams this season, No. 5 Trinity finally broke through and eliminated defending state champion Notre Dame 64-52 in double-overtime during Thursday night’s Class A boys basketball quarterfinals.

“We know what each other does so well,” said Trinity coach John Fowkes. “I was 0-6 against (Notre Dame coach) Jarrod West until tonight, but I’ll take this one over those six – I’m telling you that right now.”

Trinity’s Caleb Jenkins hit a 3 with 14 seconds left in the first overtime to tie the game at 50-50 and send the contest into a second overtime, keeping the Warriors (19-7) alive.

“He’s been hurt for about a month and a half and he’s finally back for us. He’s fresh,” Fowkes said.

“The kid has a lot of guts and a lot of basketball savvy. He has a little swagger with him and he’s not afraid to take any shot. I knew if any kid was going to hit that shot, it was going to be Caleb and that’s what we drew up. We’ve been running that play in practice and it worked.”

Jenkins finished with 12 points on 4-of-11 shooting and went 2-of-8 from 3, including the biggest shot of the game.

JENKINS’ GAME TYING 3:

“We ran a play we call 20 – we’ve been running that since day one freshman year,” Jenkins said. “That was the first play we learned. We handled the ball well, got a couple of good screens set, came off and I knocked it down.”

Notre Dame (18-7) had won all three previous meetings coming into Thursday. The most recent two were battles that came down to the end as well.

“The thing I’m proud of is that we had that label that we couldn’t finish tight games, but we’re celebrating in the locker room right now because we finally finished a ball game,” said Trinity junior Briston Bennett. “It was all 14 guys in the locker room. Every single one of us believed in it. I’m so proud of the way we believed in each other and ourselves – we finally got one.”

Trinity led 24-23 at the half and the game went into the fourth quarter tied at 31-31.

Both teams had runs in the fourth quarter, with Trinity opening up with a 7-0 run to take a 38-31 lead. The Irish answered with a 9-0 run, forcing five turnovers in that span, to go in front 40-38.

Trinity had lost three times this season to Notre Dame, but broke through in the Class A state tournament quarterfinals.

A bucket from Trinity senior Joe Zini tied the game up at 42-42 with just 24 seconds to go in regulation, ultimately sending the contest to overtime.

Gabe Zummo hit an early 3 in the first extra session that the Irish a 48-45 advantage with 3:06 to go before Jenkins eventually hit the tying 3 at 50-50.

Trinity scored the first six points of the second overtime to take control — all of those came from the free throw line. In fact, Trinity went 12 of 14 from the line in the second overtime to clinch the win.

“We practice foul shots a lot and it’s usually after we run some sprints and get on the foul line,” Fowkes said. “We condition ourselves to make foul shots when we’re tired.”

Zini finished with 15 points to lead Trinity in the win, while Bennett scored 13 points and Joel Robertson added 10 points.

The Irish were without center Todd Griffith late in the game as he went out with a knee injury during overtime.

“Give all the credit to Trinity – those guys have been battling and grinding,” said Notre Dame coach Jarrod West. “Coach (Fowkes) has done a good job of building that program.

“He’s been looking for that signature win,” he continued. “He’s been getting close and he got it tonight. They made more shots and more plays than us and they got the win.”

Notre Dame was led by Gabe Zummo who scored 22 points, but went 6 of 23 from the floor.

“In the second half, we did a heck of a job on that kid,” Fowkes said. “The numbers that stand out are 6 of 23 and 3 of 12 from 3. If you do that to that kid, you have a good chance of winning the ball game.”

The Warriors move on to face No. 1 Wheeling Central on Friday at 7:15 p.m.

Trinity fell to the Maroon Knights in overtime on Jan. 31.

“I thought we should have won that game,” Fowkes said. “But that happens in basketball when you’re under pressure and I think we learned from that game. We just believe and that defines our ball team.”

POSTGAME:





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