Trojans to Play for District Title Tonight

In a dramatic evening at Carlson High School that ended with a punch thrown and a full-body tackle, pulled out a 47-44 victory over Southgate Anderson Wednesday night thanks to a late steal and free throw by sophomore Jason Zahran.

The Trojans will be underdogs in their championship matchup tonight at 7 p.m. against Kennedy, who knocked off host Carlson in the other semifinal.

Zahran’s steal with eight seconds to play in a 44-44 tie game is what set off a sequence of events that resulted in a Trojan player being tackled and another Trojan being sucker punched in the stomach at the same time.

Zahran poked the ball away from Southgate guard Brandon Ostrowski, who fouled him on the other end of the court to put the Trenton sophomore on the stripe with the game on the line. Zahran made one of two free throws to put the Trojans up one with six seconds left.

Emotions flared in the final six seconds. First, Southgate star guard James Jackson never got the chance to win the game as the official made a questionable traveling call to give the ball back to Trenton. As Southgate players and coaches furiously argued the call, Trenton threw a long inbounds pass to the streaking Chad Hamilton for a breakaway layup.

Southgate senior Brandon Riney tackled Hamilton as he went up for the layup—looking more like a linebacker than a basketball player—while at the same time at midcourt, Trenton's standout sophomore Terez Smith was on all fours after being punched in the stomach by a Titan player.

"As a coach, you just can't control some things. That's something I can't control," Morrow said. "But I'm proud of the way our guys handled it. They showed class. ... I'm proud of Terez, too. He's had the flu all week on top of all this. He was big for us tonight."

Though the game had a bit of everything for entertainment value, the Trojans would have most likely assumed stop the game after the third quarter.

They had played a brilliant basketball game up until the Trojans inbounded the ball to start the fourth quarter leading 38-23. Then Southgate came storming back with the help of a full-court press that confused and frustrated the Trenton guards. The Titans also caught fire from three-point land and went on an incredible, and for Trenton, horribly uncomfortable 20-2 run for the first six minutes of the fourth quarter.

"That was tough to watch," said Trenton coach Rick Morrow of the fourth-quarter comeback. "They were very active on the press and our guys weren't getting the ball to the middle. We just couldn't figure that out. Plus our shots quit falling and they couldn't miss. That's how it goes sometimes."

The drama built as Southgate held the ball the final minute of the game with the game tied at 44 trying to hold for the last shot before Zahran sparked the mayhem with the clutch steal and hitting the game winner at the line.

"I missed that first one (free throw), but I knew I was going to hit the second one," Zahran said before crediting his coach for the game-clinching steal. "He told us in the timeout that we had some fouls to give so play really aggressive and go hard for the steal. So that's what I did."

Hamilton led the Trojans with 16 points and Smith chipped in with 13.

“It was a good win,” said Morrow. “You just never want to see a game end like that.”

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