Trinity Episcopal’s Armando Bacot is always a matchup challenge, most anyone who checks in at 6-foot-9 is for other high school teams. But when he’s knocking down 3-pointers and playing the way he played against St. Anne’s-Belfield Saturday in an 86-66 Prep League championship win, that challenge goes to another level.
“He’s big, he’s strong and he still does a lot of the little things really well,” said STAB coach Brian Kent. “He’ll find bodies, he’ll box out and it’s a tough task and we knew.”
STAB had done a pretty solid job against Bacot in the squad’s regular season finale despite losing to the 32-1 Titans and that didn’t got unnoticed by Trinity.
“We played them last week at their place and we as a team played well but he didn’t have his best game for whatever reason,” said Trinity Episcopal coach Rick Hamlin. “I definitely challenged him tonight to be the best player on the court and he was tonight. He was amazing.”
Bacot exploded for 36 points and 12 rebounds in the win, earning Prep League Tournament MVP honors in the process.
STAB couldn’t get into a groove against the Titans, trailing 25-10 out of the gate with Bacot knocking down one of those 3-pointers early and scoring nine of those 25 points.
“As great of a season as we’ve had, and at 32-1 it has been really good, but one thing we haven’t been great about is our first quarters,” Hamlin said. “We made a big emphasis on let’s get off to a great start, let’s not leave anything to chance.”
Trinity’s Jason Wade finished with 12 points, including eight during the first half explosion. Zach Jacobs, who was named Prep League player of the year, scored 11 for the Titans while Aaron Duhart had eight including a pair of 3-pointers. Duhart tore his meniscus in Trinity’s first game of the year and this is only his fourth game back. The West Point signee is particularly dangerous from outside, giving an already explosive Trinity team an added dimension.
“I see all these NBA teams scrambling to acquire people right before the trade deadline and I think we had the best high school pickup you can have right before the postseason,” Hamlin said.
Jayden Nixon had another strong performance with 13 points and eight rebounds after his double double against St. Christopher’s in the Prep League semifinals and Isaiah Kilby-Sharp chipped in 11 points and four rebounds. Nic Kent also filled up the stat sheet with seven points, six assists and five steals while Messiah Woods had eight points and three assists. The Saints just couldn’t contain Bacot despite the efforts of Wayt Timberlake and Jack Pausic defensively off the bench.
“I appreciate the couple of guys that don’t get in the game very much and did the little things we wanted them to do (against Bacot),” Kent said. “We’ve just got to learn from it and get better.”
Both squads will play in the VISAA tournament next week, with Trinity competing in Division I while STAB looks to make a run in the Division II tournament.
