Trail splits pair of games to end season

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DARKE COUNTY — The National Trail boys’ basketball team was able to split a pair of games to end its regular season, beating Bradford 40-28 on Tuesday, Feb. 9, before falling 58-36 to Arcanum on Friday, Feb. 12.

Against Bradford, Trail jumped out to a 10-4 lead after the first quarter, but only scored two points in the second as they headed into halftime up 12-11.

“It was a slow-paced game where neither team shot the ball very well. We were able to grind it out in the second half by creating a few turnovers and getting enough easy looks to start to pull away,” said Trail head coach Mike Harrison.

The floodgates did reopen up a bit in the second half, as trail outscored Bradford 10-4 in the third and 18-13 in the fourth.

Dalton Mason led the Blazers with 14 points and nine rebounds while Chase Thompson added 10 points, 12 rebounds, and four steals.

Trail then turned their efforts to Arcanum, hosting the Spartans for the last game of the regular season.

The Blazers were on the wrong end of the slow start this time around, getting outscored 12-4 in the first quarter. Arcanum kept the pressure up and took a big 31-17 lead into the half as well.

Trail shot 11-36 from the floor on the night, including just 3 for 15 in the paint and only grabbed four offensive rebounds.

“Arcanum played well defensively and never let us establish any rhythm on the offensive end,” said Harrison.

Dylan Haas hit two three-pointers in the last minute to lead Trail in scoring with seven. Thompson grabbed eight rebounds on the night as well.

Trail will play two-seeded Miami East on Saturday, Feb. 20 at Belmont High School. The tip-off is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.

By Jeremy Erskine

[email protected]

Reach Jeremy at 937-683-4061 or on Twitter @jerskine_RH.

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