Triton senior student-athletes are recognized in the recently-completed Trojan Trench on Saturday night. (Photos by James Costello)

BOURBON — When a broken water pipe made Triton’s gym floor unplayable in early January, among other headaches, the school’s senior student-athletes missed out on having senior nights at the Trojan Trench.

So after construction wrapped on the new floor at the Trojan Trench, athletic director Mason McIntyre decided to honor those athletes with the first-ever senior night in the newly-finished gym. Saturday night’s gathering at THS served both as a proper send-off for senior Trojans as well as an opportunity for the community to come see the new floor firsthand.

“We just thought ‘How could we give the kids an opportunity to be recognized for everything that they’ve accomplished throughout their four years here at Triton High School?’” explained McIntyre. “We thought that this might be a good way to do it — allow people to come in, see the new floor and recognize those kids at the same time. So we thought it would be a win-win for everybody.

“Just excited to recognize the kids, to share with everybody the resiliency of those kids. Because they were kind of displaced, and they held their heads high and just showed class and just really showed that Trojan pride that we talk about.”

After being recognized alongside their parents, Triton’s seniors played a friendly game of knockout for the crowd, and boys basketball player Ross Johnson was the last man standing. Following the game, attendees were invited to walk on the new floor and try it out for themselves.

The new floor — which bore a final price tag of more than $180,000 and was almost entirely covered by the school’s insurance plan — was completed in mid-April. Among the many nightmares Triton athletics endured in the meantime, the girls basketball and wrestling teams hosted their senior nights at the elementary, while the boys basketball team never had one at all. The Trojans were initially scheduled to have theirs at nearby Plymouth High School, which stepped up to host several games at the tail end of the regular season, but in an ironic twist of fate, flooding throughout the town of Plymouth prevented that plan from ever taking place.

The new floor at the Trojan Trench is an impressive one, with eye-catching stain work to match a high-tech subfloor, and, although the circumstances surrounding the work were unfortunate, McIntyre is happy with the finished product.

“We’re really, really pleased with how everything came out,” he said. “I think it just looks beautiful, and it just recognizes, I think, our tradition here. Can’t say enough good things about Cedar Creek Flooring, they’re the company that put the floor in. They did an awesome job for us, were great to work with. Also just our staff — our PE teachers here who were forced out of their classroom space for about 13, 14 weeks, and they had to find new places to do it, so just kudos to those guys and the kids for being flexible and everything. We couldn’t be happier with how things turned out. It’s one of those things that in the long run we’re better off than we were before, but we had a lot of bumps and headaches to get there.”