Trinity girls lose fifth-straight, boys fall on last-second layup

The Trinity basketball programs hosted Bishop Ryan Saturday afternoon at Trinity High School for a late season non-region contest. The girls were looking to snap their four-game losing streak, while the boys looked to maintain their edge on the defensive end, holding their last six opponents to 38.8 points per game. Up first was the girls game.

Bishop Ryan used a big second quarter to power themselves to victory. After being tied at 15 at the end of the first, the Lions outscored the Titans 28-9 in the second to take full control of the game.

Senior forward Sydney Upton had 14 points in the quarter to lead the Lions. Junior guard Magee Rovig had nine.

Both teams were in the bonus in the first quarter and had plenty of attempts at the free-throw line. Trinity was 7-for-10 at the line in the first half, Bishop Ryan was 10-for-11.

Upton and Rovig combined to hit all 11 of their free throw attempts in the first half. The Lions made it tough on the Titans to generate any offense outside of their free throw makes. Five of their seven makes in the first half came in the first quarter, when the game was still close.

As soon as their free throw attempts dwindled, that’s when Bishop Ryan made their run. A 20-3 run by the Lions made it 35-18 as the Titans called timeout.

“Part of it was the intensity and the fundamentals,” Trinity head coach Trevor Ernst said. “They were very intense and in the right spots. They took away the middle. It’s something that we have to get used to. Not everyone we play has a defense like that so sometimes it kinds of shocks the girls. It’s what we expected, but it took us a while to react to it.”

Upton and Rovig did most of their damage in the first half, combining for 33 points, leading Bishop Ryan to a 43-24 lead. As a team the Lions were 18-for-22 from the free-throw line.

“Any time you have two (scorers) it’s really hard (to defend),” Ernst said. “Sometimes if a team has one you can do things to take care of it but they have two, and when you help out on one, the other goes. They did a nice job of sharing the basketball.”

Trinity either tied the Lions or were outscored in every quarter. Senior guard Kali Kubas and freshman forward Navaeh Tormaschy each had 12 points. It was the Titans’ fifth-straight loss.

Things won’t get any easier down the stretch for them. Matchups with Glen Ullin-Hebron (7-0, 15-2) and Bowman County (7-1, 14-3) await, the two teams at the top of Region 7.

“The teams we play here and the rest of the year, it’s going to be the same atmosphere,” Ernst said. “And as good of competition we’re going to have in the regional tournament. We’re going to treat it as just another step of getting ready for the regional tournament. There’s some tough teams coming up so every game will be a challenge.”

BOX SCORE

	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	F
Bishop Ryan	15	28	19	9	71
Trinity	15	9	16	9	49

Scoring - Bishop Ryan: Sydney Upton 27, Magee Rovig 21, Chinelo Udekwe 12, Berkeley Lundeen 8, Tochi Udekwe 3; Trinity: Kali Kubas, Nevaeh Tormaschy 12, Ava Jahner 8, Annabel Scheeler 6, Katherine Schneider 4, Hope Fath 3, McKenna Ernst, Elly McAvoy 2.

Winning seven of their last eight games, including a victory over Bowman County Tuesday night, the Titans had confidence and momentum going into Saturday’s contest.

But in the end, Bishop Ryan made the key plays to walk away with the win.

Tied at 49 with under a minute to play, Trinity sophomore forward Cade Fitterer stood at the free-throw line with the chance to give his side the lead, after making his first free throw.

He missed the second and the Lions went the other way. They didn’t call timeout and let the game play out. Junior forward Ian Johnson pulled up from three-point range for the lead and it missed. Unable to secure the defensive rebound, Bishop Ryan corralled the ball and put up another shot, which also missed.

The Lions had one more offensive rebound in them by freshman forward Ramsey Walz, who put up a final shot that went in for the lead with 1.5 seconds remaining.

Trinity was able to get a timeout to set up a final play, but the inbounds pass was deflected and the clock ran out.

“Execution and fundamentals, that’s all it was,” Trinity head coach Gregg Grinsteinner said. “They took a tough shot and we had an opportunity to get two rebounds and we didn’t block guys out. The last two and a half minutes of the game we talked about just doing the simple things. That’s usually what it comes down to when you’re playing a good team like that. Simplify, and that means going back to the simple things you start doing on day one.”

Before the final sequence of events, Bishop Ryan had taken their first lead of the game since the second quarter at 47-45 after junior forward Connor Reindel hit a layup.

On the other end, Trinity senior guard Aiden Haich knocked down a clutch 3-pointer to retake the lead. The Lions answered with another basket, before Fitterer was sent to the line.

The Titans had their chances in the second half to pull away, but the offensive execution just wasn’t there. They were up 35-30 midway through the third quarter, but the Lions came alive, scoring all ten of their points in the quarter after the halfway point.

“Everyone talks about the last sequence but we had sequences before that where we had opportunities and either didn’t finish with shots or had a turnover, or didn’t get a hand up on the shooter, there’s a lot of things that go into this,” Grinsteinner said.

The game was never out of reach for Bishop Ryan, but it felt like at multiple points the Titans had a run in them. It never came to fruition and went home with the loss.

Johnson and junior guard Brady Feller were the two main sources of offense for the Lions, combining for 37. Sophomore guard Jake Shobe had 16 for the Titans. Haich had 15 with three 3-pointers.

“You have to be able to win the hustle plays,” Grinsteinner said. “Games like this are determined by hustle plays…It was a good game for our kids. I think they hopefully learned a lesson from it. You can build off that. If you’re not going to learn a lesson from it, it stings, and it better sting.”

The boys have a little more left in their season than the girls, with five games remaining. They’ll host Grant County Mott-Regent (3-3, 6-9) Tuesday night.

BOX SCORE

	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	F
Bishop Ryan	11	15	13	12	51
Trinity	11	16	12	8	49

Scoring - Bishop Ryan: Brady Feller 23, Ian Johnson 14, Ramsey Walz 6, Connor Reindel 4, Logan Wentz, Josh Will 2; Trinity: Jake Shobe 16, Aiden Haich 15, Cade Fitterer, Ty Praus 5, Trever Jassek, Drew Kovash 4.