In Friday’s first session and game of the Whitaker Bank KHSAA Boy’s Sweet 16 quarterfinals the Trinity Shamrocks took on the Hopkinsville Tigers. Both teams advanced to the quarterfinal match up with wins on the first day of the tournament.
Trinity(30-5) plagued with turnovers, defeated Hopkinsville (31-2) 74 to 56 and at one point was up on the Tigers by 22 in the fourth quarter. Trinity evened out their 20 turnovers by scoring 34 points in the paint, 14 second chance points, 29 bench points, shooting 56%(22-39) from the field, and 50%(6-12) from 3 point land for the game. Trinity owned the glass out rebounding the Tigers 33 to 22.
The Kentucky National Guard Player of the Game was Trinity’s #35 Raymond Spalding. Spalding scored 14 points(6-8), had 7 rebounds, 5 blocks while altering many more shots.  Spalding’s presence was felt by Hopkinsville as he lurked inside and was deserving of the honor. Helping  Spalding and the Shamrocks was #4 Jax Levitch with 14 points, 12 from  shooting 4 of 5 from 3 point land. #1Trey Ivory had 9 points, 4 assists and #30 Michael Stafford and #13 Daniel Ramser also scored 9 while #33 Craig Owens scored 4 but cleaned the glass by grabbing 10 rebounds.
As for Hopkinsville they converted Trinity’s turnovers into 28 points, scored 24 in the paint,shot 30%(17-56) from the field and 24%(4-17) from the 3 point stripe. The Tiger leading scorer was #5 Quan Poindexter with 19 points(4-14)and 5 rebounds and 2 steals. Most of Poindexter’s points came from the charity stripe(10-14). #3 Tra Edwards was also cold from the field shooting 2 of 9 from the field but was perfect from the charity stripe(6-6) combining for 10 points. #32 Qualis Matlock scored 8 while grabbing 7 rebounds(4 offensive). The Tiger’s bench was unproductive as they only scored 10 points compared to Trinity’s 29.
Trinity moves on to the semifinals to face the winner of the Scott County Johnson Central game. The game is scheduled for 6:30 pm Saturday.
