Trinity opens state tournament with win over Strawberry Mansion

By Gorden Blain
HERSHEY—District 3 AA champion Trinity (23-7) had its hands full from the start of its PIAA AA state tournament first round game against Strawberry Mansion (18-5) Saturday afternoon at Hersheypark Arena.
But the Shamrocks’ discipline and patience with their motion offense wore down the Knights from the Philadelphia Public League and Trinity prevailed 64-49 to advance to the second round of the state tournament.
Division 1 college prospect Eric Kindler, a junior forward, led Trinity with 20 points. Sr. point guard Matt Donahue had 19 and sophomore guard Kevin Agnew had 14 points, sinking 10 of his 13 free throws in the second half.
Sr. guard Darren Lawrence led Mansion with 20 points and Devonte Newbill had 10.
Mansion, the fourth-place team from District 12, started quickly by sinking a barrage of jump shots to grab a 18-12 lead after the first quarter. Trinity was jittery, committing six turnovers as the Knights raced to a 16-8 lead.
Trinity settled down with the ball in the second quarter. Kindler’s three-point basket midway through the quarter cut the Mansion lead to 23-22 and Donahue’s three-pointer made it 26-25 Mansion at the half.
Lawrence had 11 points for Mansion, which shot 57 percent, at the half. Kindler had 11 and Donahue 10 for Trinity.
“We just executed like a son-of-a-gun,” said Trinity coach Larry Kostelac. “This big floor is to our advantage. We’l l just spread you out. I told our guys at halftime that if we could eliminate the unforced turnovers, we’d be up and not down one. We took away their run out layups and that’s a big part of their game.”
Mike Diminick’s three-point basket to open the second half gave Trinity its first lead at 28-26. With the score tied at 30, back-to-back put backs off offensive rebounds by Kindler built the Trinity lead to 35-30 midway through the third quarter and touched off the decisive 18-0 offensive charge for the Shamrocks.
Donahue found an open look off of Trinity’s patient, motion offense and drilled a three-ball that gave the Shamrocks a 38-30 lead. Agnew added a layup, Donahue a jumper, Agnew two free throws, another three-ball from Donahue and a Donahue free throw and the lead grew to 48-30.
Mansion crashed the backboard after a miss and Kyree Wooten scored to snap Trinity’s 18-0 offensive blitz. The Knights got two more baskets to close the third quarter off of their press and cut the Trinity lead to 48-36.
The Knights opened the fourth quarter with a basket to make the score 48-38 before Kindler made two free throws to make it 50-38. Mansion cut the Trinity lead to 54-44 but the Shamrocks rode the double-bonus at the foul line to protect the lead.