March 12, 2011 by JS Online — When it counted most, Milwaukee Riverside made the plays that made the difference. Again. In a tight affair with Milwaukee King on Saturday afternoon, the Tigers boys basketball team went on an 11-1 run in the fourth quarter that led to a 60-48 victory over the Generals and the school’s first sectional title. The victory, in previous years, would have earned Riverside a state tournament berth. However, with the addition of a fifth division to the tournament this year, the Tigers (23-2) must beat Madison Memorial, the winner of the Sun Prairie Sectional, on Tuesday at UW-Whitewater to reach the Division 1 state semifinals at the Kohl Center in Madison.
The moment was still sweet for Tigers, who overcame a third-quarter scoring drought to erupt for 23 points in the fourth quarter. “It feels good,” Riverside coach Tyrone Lewis said as he clutched the sectional championship plaque. “It feels good for the school, for the kids. The kids, they play hard. They earned it. I’m happy for them.” The Tigers rode the broad shoulders of senior Trinson White. The 6-foot-5 guard/forward had a game-high 23 points and accounted for two big buckets during the deciding run.
He scored 16 points in the first half when many of his teammates were struggling. “After seeing the first couple of minutes of the game where we needed a bucket, I just looked to score, looked to be aggressive,” White said. “I took the shots that I normally knock down in practice and I got a rhythm. And when I got a rhythm, I felt good.” Junior guard Bakari Triggs added 14 points. His brother Shomari, also a junior, added eight points, and sophomore forward D’Andre Downey had five of his nine points in the fourth quarter.
Junior guard/forward Arroyo Edwards had 20 points for King, which finished 22-3. His dish to junior guard Nic Stokes for a three-pointer from the corner gave the Generals a 43-42 lead with about 6 minutes left. But in a game in which both teams led for long stretches, it was Riverside’s turn to take charge. The deciding run started with the Tigers breaking King’s full-court pressure in textbook fashion, with Bakari Triggs finishing the play with a dish to Downey on the baseline for an easy basket that gave Riverside a 44-43 advantage with 5:39 left.
One of the biggest blows was a four-point possession that started with White hitting a basket while drawing a foul and ended with Downey tipping in White’s missed free throw to make it a 49-44 game with 3:03 to play. Then it was Shomari Triggs’ turn. He made a steal at midcourt and converted a layup to push the lead to seven. The next possession, he pushed the ball up-court, spotted White on the wing and tossed a perfect lob that White threw down to make it a 53-44 game with 2:11 left.
That was all she wrote for the Generals, whose season ended in the sectional final for the second straight year. The story continues for Riverside, which added Saturday’s fourth-quarter heroics to its long list of clutch plays this season. “In crunch time we just come together as a team, suck it up and just play together,” Shomari Triggs said. “We all know when it’s time to play and we all come together and play as a team.”
