MORGANTOWN — Friday night marked a deceptively short 86-day gap when Braxton County last faced the Trinity Christian boys basketball team on the Warriors’ home court in the 2023-24 season opener. The stakes were considerably higher the second time around – the Class AA Region II Section 2 championship was on the line, and it didn’t really matter that top-seeded TCS handily defeated the Eagles, 68-37 back in December. A lot can change in three months, especially once you get to the postseason.
And in a game that fit perfectly into both the ‘Any Given Night’ and ‘Let a Team Hang Around’ categories, Braxton County took down the Warriors in a double overtime barnburner, 63-59.
Trinity (11-10) started according to the preferred script – a jumper from Carter Hartsock, a three from Chayce Adams, a charge taken by Parker Hopkins, a big rebound and put back from Ben Lohmann – and it all added up to a quick 7-2 lead three minutes in. But they missed several opportunities to extend their advantage to double digits, and the Eagles’ (10-13) rebounding superiority started to take effect late in the first and into the second quarter. The result was a 19-16 Braxton lead midway through the second. A pair of late bombs from Hartsock and Adams allowed the Warriors to hold a narrow 25-23 edge at the break.
After scoring the first four of the second half, the Eagles tied the score at 25, and the lead see-sawed until three straight triples and defensive stops from TC opened up a 40-31 gap late in the quarter.
But BC refused to die, as they crept back to within five at 40-35 heading into the fourth. Points got tough to find, as both teams ramped up the defensive pressure, and Braxton County finally clawed back to knot the score at 44 apiece with two minutes remaining. The Warriors held the ball for the final shot, but Lohmann’s straightaway three missed.
In the first OT, the lead bounced back and forth again until 1:30 remained, when Adams hit a three that danced around the rim and kissed the backboard before finally falling. It was his 1,000th point for the Warriors injust his junior season.
Now if life always followed the Hallmark Channel’s storybook endings, 52-49 would’ve been the final margin of victory for Trinity. But 1:30 is a long time in basketball, and the Eagles exploited the Warriors’ season-long struggles with rebounding and turnovers to forge a 54-52 lead with 27 seconds left. Hartsock hit a free throw, then with six ticks left, Hopkins hit one of two from the line to extend the game once again, 54-54.
In the second overtime, the exhausted Warriors seemed to run out of gas, as BC big man Stephen Boggs completed a traditional three-point play to jump-start the Eagles. Hopkins drilled a crucial shot from behind the arc to tie it, and Hartsock scored to tie it again at 59-59, but BC’s Riley Hunt scored on an offensive rebound, Landon Stewart hit a critical pair of free throws with 26 seconds left, and the Warriors couldn’t find the basket the rest of the way.
Adams led all scorers with 26, while Stewart paced the Eagles with 17.
After the game, Warriors coach Codey Horton was quick to praise the coaching job of his longtime friend, BC’s Josh Lunceford.
“Josh has obviously done a great job with this team,” Horton said, “considering how easily we beat them in December. We got tired late, because our bench was a little short due to injury, but we’ve dealt with rebounding and ball security issues all season long, and it really hurt us tonight. We also got a little quick in our half-court offense. We were taking good shots, open looks, but I think we weren’t shooting it in rhythm at times, and that tends to lead to more misses.
“Still, it took a great effort and six periods to beat us,” he continued, “and I was proud of our kids, especially our seniors (Hartsock, Lohmann and Charles Steptoe) for their effort and battle level. We will need a lot of heart and will and want to win the Region on the road, but if we play as a team the way I know we can, we can get the job done.”
The Warriors travel to Moorefield on Wednesday at 7 p.m. for the Region II championship game and a berth in the Class AA State Tournament in Charleston.
BY MARK SCHRAF
BOX SCORE
Braxton County 63, Trinity Christian 59
Braxton County 8 15 12 9 10 9 – 63
Trinity Christian 13 12 15 4 10 5 – 59
BRAXTON COUNTY (10-13) — Riley Hunt 6 1-3 13 Brady Toler 4 0-2 10 Landon Stewart 6 4-6 17 Owen Lowther 2 0-0 4 Stephen Boggs 6 2-5 14 James Nettles 2 1-2 5 Totals 26 8-18 63
TRINITY CHRISTIAN (11-10) — Ben Lohmann 1 0-0 2 Chayce Adams 10 0-0 26 Carter Hartsock 4 3-6 12 Marcos Kniska 3 0-0 9 Parker Hopkins 3 1-2 10 Totals 21 4-8 59
Three-pointers – BC 3 (Toler 2, Stewart), TC 13 (Hopkins 3, M. Kniska 3, Adams 6, Hartsock 1)
