Title puts Trinity boys basketball back on top ahead of schedule

The future is now for the Trinity High School boys basketball team.

When Keith Bike took over as head coach of the Pioneers three years ago, one his goals was to return the program to the glory days of not so long before.

From 2007-13, Trinity played for the Class L/Division I title five times, winning two championships. But over a five-year stretch that ended in 2020 - Bike's first full year as coach - the Pioneers won just 17 games and missed the D1 playoffs four times.

"My first year, we competed," Bike said. "We were 4-14 but we competed. Last year, with the five seniors, we learned how to win and we won. We competed, we learned how to win, and then this year, we took it to the next level."

After that four-win season, Trinity took advantage of the regional-playoff structure in 2021 and found a way to get to the semifinals, perhaps earlier than Bike or anyone else would have expected. With a starting lineup of four sophomores and a senior this year, the Pioneers found away to put it all together, capturing their first D1 title since 2013 on Sunday with a 64-62 win over Goffstown.

"We got that winning tradition back to Trinity," Bike said. "These kids, I don’t know if they’re too young to realize the moments and they just play, but they played free and they played fast. This year, it worked."

Trinity (19-1) had just one senior who regularly contributed, Andrew Politi, and his journey through four years of high school basketball is a unique one. After playing mostly junior varsity as a freshman and sophomore, Politi transferred to a prep school that didn't end up having a basketball season in 2020-21.

Politi delivered for Trinity in the first half of the championship game, scoring 10 of his 12 points while shooting 4 of 6 from the field, with two 3-pointers.

"He had a tough career, this is his only real year of high school basketball," Bike said. "I believe in him. He’s not going to have two straight poor shooting games. He’s never had a poor-shooting practice. I knew he was going to come out here and make some shots. He’s such a tough kid. I’m so proud of him."

A big reason for the success was Trinity's ability to score in a number of ways, including a consistent perimeter game. The Pioneers shot 68 percent in the first half of Sunday's game, finished at 51 percent for the day, hitting six 3-pointers while also scoring 25 points off turnovers.

Trinity forced Goffstown into 15 turnovers, with nine of those coming on steals, including the game-clinching theft by Tyler Bike.

"I wasn’t surprised (with the first half) with us because we’ve been shooting the ball a lot better," Bike said. "We changed our whole philosophy in practice. We’ve been shooting more than we ever had. Our kids shoot the ball well. When we’re doing drills, we tell them make sure you’re shooting game shots."

With four starters who were sophomores - Tyler Bike, Max Shosa, DeVohn Ellis and Mark Nyomah - plus it's top two players off the bench, Connor Herman (junior) and Jaiden Summers (freshman), all potentially back, the Pioneers' run could end up looking a lot like that stretch from a decade ago.

"I’m still a little in shock," Keith Bike said. "A bunch of sophomores and one senior who really plays a lot, a couple of others on the roster, won a championship. I’m surprised. I thought we were going to be good going into this year."