Owensboro were able to stifle the Raiders offense on Wednesday with their rowdy fullcourt pressure, helping them grab a 71-42 first round win in the 3rd Region Tournament.
The Red Devils defense was all over Trinity right off the bat, creating turnovers to take a 6-0 lead. Junior Landon Huff snapped the streak with a layup with five minutes to go in the first, but Owensboro’s chaotic defense didn’t let up.
Forcing the Raiders into traps and rushing them into turnovers possession after possession, the Red Devils took a 19-10 lead into the second.
Huff picked up back-to-back fouls to open up the second, but Trinity responded well without its leading scorer. Starting to slow the pace of the game, the Raiders began to play very physical and clog the lane.
This made Owensboro work to get all of their points from inside, while earning their way to the free throw themselves on the other end.
“That was the gameplan,” Head Coach Nathan West said. “Our goal with them at any time was to control the pace. We’d planned for their run and jump and stuff like that and we worked on it all week. But, we don’t have the athletes to simulate it. They do a good job of giving the guards a false sense of security too. You might beat the first guy and that’s part of what they want.”
These efforts helped Trinity inch its way back towards a single-digit deficit, going into halftime trailing 31-21. However, the Raiders efforts didn’t follow them into the second half, as the Red Devils sped them up with their fullcourt pressure once again in the third.
Junior Talas Taylor grabbed the first five points of the third to kickstart a 23-2 run, filled with Trinity turnovers and a pair of threes from freshman Will Hume to give Owensboro a 54-23 lead with 2:08 left in the quarter.
Hume grabbed another three late in the third to extend their lead, knocking three of his four threes on the night in the quarter. The freshman’s marksmanship was key and will be going forward alongside his teammates if they can open up the floor for their leading scorers in Kenyatta Carbon and Amari Robinson-Wales.
“We’ve been trying to do it all year long, we’re just now starting to do it,” Drake said. “Tonight was the game that Will can play and Taylor can play.”
The fourth quarter was much of the same for the Raiders, as Owensboro continued to have a balanced effort on both ends of the floor to close the door on a 71-42 win.
“We sped them up a little bit and that’s what we gotta do,” Drake said. “We gotta play fast and try to use our speed to our advantage. And guys gotta come off the bench and play their role. They’re a good basketball team and they were here for a reason. Just glad we got them out of the way.”
Carbon led all scorers with 19 points, Robinson-Wales followed close behind with 15 and Hume chipped in 13 points off of the bench.
The win sends Owensboro into the 3rd Region semifinals, as they will meet McLean County at 3 p.m. on Saturday. The Red Devils played the Cougars once in the regular season, as Owensboro won 59-49.
Drake said that he wants Owensboro to come out stronger to open games and that it will be crucial against a tough opponent like McLean County this weekend.
“We gotta come out with better starts,” Drake said. “That’s our main concern, coming out with better starts and taking care of the basketball and I think we’ll be ok. We’re going to play against a tough McLean County team. We played them once this year. Again, it’s going to be the region semis, so it’s going to be a ballgame.”
Meanwhile, Huff was the only player in double figures for the Raiders, tallying 14 points. Following the game West thanked the community for their outpouring of support this season and is thankful for the program to have this experience in the 3rd Region Tournament.
“We need the experience,” West said. “And our town, they do a really good job of supporting both of our teams. Our girls made it here a couple years ago and it was similar. They all have shirts made right now and stuff like that. They’ve supported us throughout the year, but especially these last couple games, so it’s huge for our community.”
Despite the outcome Trinity will be returning almost their entire roster, giving them hope for the future with some postseason experience under their belt going into next season.
“We’re excited,” West said. “We’re going to have everyone except for Bailey… Outside of that we’ve got everybody back. We’ve got a good young group coming up too. I’d say the future is really bright for us. I would say we’d probably be a favorite in our district with just the amount of losses we’re gonna not have and everyone else will have. But, that’ll be good. We haven’t really had a lot of pressure like that before, so it’ll be good to play with that kind of pressure. “
