Trojans Roll In Season Opener
BOURBON – It took a little while for Triton to find its groove on Wednesday night’s season opener.
Some first-game jitters appeared to be getting the best of the Trojan starting five at first, but once the shots started falling a weight was lifted as Triton would cruise to a 74-30 win over Oregon-Davis.
At first, the Trojans seemed timid and passive, both mentally and with the ball. The visiting Bobcats grabbed a 6-2 lead around the halfway point in the first quarter but Triton did not stay passive for long.
The Trojans would string together a 12-2 run to end the opening quarter and would outscore Oregon-Davis 15-4 in the second frame to grab a 29-12 halftime advantage.
Trojan head coach Jason Groves did not like how his team started but knew his kids just needed to get confident.
“I think we were a little nervous at first,” said Groves. “We were just slow to start out. We seemed a little unsure of ourselves. We were doing some pretty weird things on both sides of the ball.
“Once they started to play with some confidence, things started to come together. They finally realized ‘Oh, yeah, we can shoot the ball well’ and finally started clicking and that picked up our defense as well.”
The first half may have seemed disappointing, or over par for the Trojans but trailing by 17, the Bobcats were just hoping it would not get any worse. Oregon-Davis was shooting just 25 percent from the field at half while the Trojans were hitting 50 percent of their shots.
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Much to the fear of the Bobcats, it only got worse in the second half.
Triton turned it up a notch in the final two frames shooting just under 70 percent in the second half. The Trojans were dead-eyes from deep in the third and fourth quarters going 10-13 from three, after going just two of eight from downtown in the first half.
Seven Trojans hit one or multiple three-pointers and three players finished with double-digits in the scoring column. The first being Jordan Anderson who was perfect from deep for the Trojans, hitting all three of his attempts to help him tally 11 points on the night. Joey Corder had 10 points and led the team with six assists. Tanner Shepherd also connected three times from behind the arc.
Shepherd was the utility man for Triton all night. The senior lead his team with 20 points and eight rebounds, tied for the most steals with four and added three assists.
While Shepherd had many highlights on the night, the moment that may have summed up his night the best was in the second half. The senior drove inside to get two points then stole the inbound pass, scored another basket and drew the foul which led to his first and only free throw on the night, which he hit.
Shepherd’s inbound steal was just one of the Bobcats 28 turnovers on the night, a stat that Groves attributed to his whole team but was more concerned that his team also turned it over 21 times.
“We made a lot of mistakes,” started Groves. “We turned the ball over quite a bit, that’s one are of concern along with playing with confidence. That will be our biggest focus going into our next game, protecting the ball and playing more confident.”
The Trojans (1-0) will take on Plymouth on Tuesday night in a match up that will certainly be much tougher. The Pilgrims ran by the Trojans 63-43 in last year’s match up and have taken the past two games from their Marshall County rivals. Tip is set for 7:30 p.m. in Bourbon.