BASKETBALL: Brentwood buffaloed after half as Trinity girls break through longstanding barrier to reach state finals

MT. VERNON – Thursday’s GIAA state semifinal matchup with Brentwood had plenty of deja vu for the Trinity Lady Crusaders, whose recent rivalry with the Eagles has become quite a saga over six meetings since last January. 

The compelling series – whose results in that span, typically favoring the underdog, are split at an even three apiece – has included postseason upsets that sent Trinity to the 2024 Final Four and Brentwood to this season’s region 2-AA championship game. 

The Lady Crusaders pulled off the latest as the teams collided for a seventh time, and fourth this season, in another game for the books at Brewton-Parker College. 

A dominant second half left the Eagles stunned as Trinity cruised to a huge win, 55-43, that will bring on a second-straight region 2-AA rematch in Saturday’s state championship game. And it’ll be another rival in Central Fellowship – with whom the Lady Crusaders share just as much recent history – that’ll stand in the way as they vie to win it all for the first time in 17 years. 

“It’s pretty awesome, pretty exciting,” said Trinity head coach Lacey Shepherd, who was at a slight loss for words to describe the feeling after an emotional postgame celebration. “It’s just very special. Being able to come out and execute the way we wanted to in the third quarter, and not take our foot off the gas.” 

Wins over Brentwood also hold a special place for the Sandersville native, who came up as an Eagle and senses something in the cosmos that always adds some extra drama and significance to the matchup anytime the two teams get together. 

“It never gets any better than beating my alma mater,” she said. 

Rather than the pattern in three of the teams’ last four games, in which the leader at the half wound up on the short end of the scoreboard, this one seemed to more closely resemble the outlier in the bunch (and perhaps the most perplexing game they played all season) a first time getting together in January. 

Trinity – playing its first basketball in about two weeks coming off a longer-than-planned international mission trip – jumped all over a Brentwood team playing without its under-the-weather center Bailey Barron, and led wire-to-wire on the way to a 17-point win.  

In similar and somewhat surprising fashion, the Lady Crusaders stayed in control of this one pretty much the whole way, minus a very sluggish first four minutes when the Eagles’ 6-0 start had Trinity looking a tad overwhelmed by the bigness of the late-season moment. 

But things quickly reversed after Shepherd called a timeout to regroup. On the other side, Maddy George hit a 3-pointer that sparked an 11-2 Crusader run over the remaining three and a half minutes of the first quarter. 

“We actually changed up and played a different defense,” Shepherd said. “We came out of man and played 1-3-1, and it just had them baffled about what offense to run against it.” 

The second started with a couple more unanswered Crusader buckets, continuing with a first-quarter trend of fast-breaks off of steals, though Brentwood regained its footing, and turned to the 6-foot-1 Barron for eight points on some strong cuts and putbacks that helped it keep pace. The junior would wrap the half with a team-high 12. 

Trinity just slightly outscored the Eagles, 18-15, and was up six going to intermission after dueling 3s in the final 30 seconds. George, who along with Lauren Williams had two each in the half, knocked down Trinity’s fifth to stretch the lead to nine just before Callie Jones buried what was only Brentwood’s first of the game from the right corner at the buzzer. 

The score was 29-23. 

For any student of the matchup, focus was fixed squarely on the third quarter for an indication of the final direction this game would be headed. That’s where the Eagles made their move to take over the region semifinal, the Lady Crusaders closed an eight-point gap to get back in a first rematch in Sandersville and Trinity had based the bulk of its quarterfinal turnaround (to outscore the Lady Eagles by 22 after trailing 14 at the half) the year before. 

But there turned out to be no swing… of momentum or points… as the Lady Crusaders came out on just as determined a streak.  

George buried her third triple on a 5-0 run to take the lead out to 11, and no Brentwood answers emerged following a timeout. Out-of-sync passes, miscommunication and bungled ball-handling marked the Eagles’ hapless offense, which would produce only six points for the quarter to offset Trinity’s 14. 

Brinley Vinson – boldly matched up on the towering Barron inside – took over the game and scored seemingly at will. The junior connected off double pivot moves for three field goals and got to the line for a fourth opportunity before the quarter’s end. She was a perfect 4-for-4 on free throws. 

The Lady Crusaders spent most of the last period running clock, as a largely compliant Brentwood mustered 14 points to slightly outscore their nine. A couple of Cadence English 3-pointers in the last three minutes briefly picked up the scoring tempo, but both came in answer to Trinity baskets, and could only cut the deficit to 15.

A few more unanswered points for the Eagles, coming well past the possibility of a comeback in the last few minutes, trimmed the final margin to 12.

Vinson led the Lady Crusaders with 16, following up a performance of 24 in the quarters against Edmund Burke. She also had double figures in each of the three earlier games against Brentwood. 

“She has come so far and is working so hard, and she’s a nightmare for other teams on defense,” Shepherd said. “But she’s an incredible offensive player.” 

George had 15. Chloe Rozier, who also hit a couple 3s out of the team’s seven, added a key 10. Maddie Grace Alligood finished with eight, and Lauren Williams six. 

The win carried a sense of redemption for this particular Trinity team, which got this far last season only to fall by a handful to Briarwood on the same court, as it did for a Lady Crusader program busting through a semifinals roadblock that’s been in place since 2010, when their last shot at winning the whole enchilada was spoiled at the buzzer by Gatewood. 

Many who were juniors on that team – including future Georgia Southern Eagle Anna Claire Knight – were also part of the squads led by Laine Hobbs, Kassi Shepherd, Bliss McMichael, Jorie Walker and others that won Trinity’s last two state crowns back-to-back in 2007 and 08. 

Shepherd, who was an assistant under then-head coach Rick Johnson during both runs, was 0-for-her first four semifinal games in 13 seasons since taking over the job, until Thursday’s win to get over the career hump. 

It’ll be more deja vu, all over again, Saturday at Columbus State as the Lady Crusaders take on Central Fellowship for a third time this season, and ninth over the past three in a series they lead 5-3. Trinity also took the upper hand in both matchups for region championships in 2023 and 2024. 

The Lancers, who lead the AA classification in points scored for the season, routed No. 7 seed Southwest Georgia 62-32 to win Thursday’s other semifinal game. 

Saturday’s championship game is slated to tip off at 3 p.m.