A furious fourth-quarter comeback helped the Trinity boys basketball team outlast Oldham County on Tuesday night in a matchup of two top-20 programs.
The host Shamrocks, who are ranked No. 5 in The Courier-Journal’s Litkenhous Ratings, rallied from a 14-point deficit in the final frame to clip the 11th-ranked Colonels 55-50 in overtime.
Trinity outscored Oldham 31-12 over the final 10 minutes, 4 seconds, including the 4 minutes of overtime.
“I think I lost some more hair,” Shamrocks coach Mike Szabo, who is bald, quipped after the game. “We were sleepwalking, I thought, for three quarters on both ends of the floor. We just didn’t have a whole lot of effort, didn’t play with a sense of urgency whatsoever and dug ourselves a huge hole. But to their credit, I’m proud of the fact that they dug down deep and came back and fought hard and started playing like we’re supposed to play.”
The Colonels (12-6) took a 38-24 lead on Brandon Johnson’s pull-up jumper with 6:24 left in regulation before the Shamrocks started to turn up the heat on defense and make some outside shots.
Trinity (17-4), which missed its first nine shots of the second half and misfired on 13 of its first 16 3-pointers of the game, outscored Oldham 20-6 over the final 6:04 of regulation. The Shamrocks tied it up at 44 on David Burton’s 3-pointer with 16 seconds left.
GALLERY | Trinity beats Oldham County in overtime
“Defensively we turned it up another notch, a couple of notches (actually), and really got after them, turned them over a little bit then we started attacking and moving the ball better and getting better shots,” Szabo said.
Twenty-six seconds into overtime Lukas Burkman hit an acrobatic layup to give Trinity its first lead since the second quarter before Johnson answered on the other end with a 3-pointer to give the lead back to Oldham. However Gabe Schmitt’s 3-pointer with 2:08 left in OT gave the Shamrocks the lead for good.
Trinity, which ranks fifth in the state in free throw shooting, then went 6-for-6 in the final 44.7 seconds to preserve the win.
Junior point guard Jacob King led Trinity with 15 points, including 12 in the fourth quarter and OT. Schmitt added 14 while Burton tallied 10, all in the fourth.
Johnson led the Colonels with 17 while Jacob Bates added nine.
“I thought we played so hard and executed very, very well for three quarters,” Oldham County coach Coy Zerhusen said. “We knew they were going to come out strong in the fourth. They had the starters on the bench, and he brought them in, we knew they were going to give us their best shot. I thought we took it pretty well for most of it. We were fighting hard and then they got hot and hit a couple of shots, and we kind of let their shooters get comfortable. That’s a heck of a team, especially when they’re able to shoot the ball that way, give them credit. But we’ve got to learn how to finish games out.”
Oldham County 11-14-9-10-6=50
Trinity 9-10-3-22-11=55
Oldham County (12-6) – McLarty 6, Bates 9, Jones 2, B. Johnson 17, Wirth 3, Henderson 5, Larimore 2, Heelan 6.
Trinity (17-4) – Burkman 7, Harris 6, Schmitt 14, Burton 10, King 15, D. Johnson 3.
3-pointers – Burton 2, Heelan 2, King 2, Schmitt 2, Burkman 1, Henderson 1, Wirth 1.