Trinity used impressive shooting and lockdown fourth quarter defense to earn a 52-48 win over Clements in Friday’s AHSAA Class 3A girls state championship basketball game at BJCC Legacy Arena.

Trinity overcame foul trouble and spotty shooting in the first and third quarters, falling behind 37-29 heading into the final period. Emma Kate Smith’s 3-pointer with 5:03 left in the game gave the top-ranked Wildcats (32-2) a 39-37 lead. Trinity never trailed again.

“We missed a lot of shots we normally hit, which allowed them to keep that lead,” said Trinity coach Blake Smith. “Then, Emma Kate knocks one down.

“A girl who’s busted her tail all her life,” a sobbing Smith said of his daughter. “She got hot and that’s some beautiful stuff. That 3 she hit from about 10 feet behind that line was beautiful.”

Clements failed to score for the first 5:35 of the final quarter, allowing the Trinity comeback.

“We believe God placed on this world to create beauty and it’s hard to create beauty in a broken world,” Blake Smith said. “These girls have worked like crazy to create beauty, relationally, and how they play basketball.”

Emma Kate Smith led the Trinity attack with 14 points, including four from 3-point range.

“I didn’t shoot as much in the first half,” she said. “Dad always says, even when I get discouraged, and I’m not making shots, ‘shooters going to shoot and it’s going to fall eventually.’ So, that’s what I was thinking and it fell.”

“Once they got the momentum there wasn’t much we could do,” said Clements head coach Shane Childress. “Very rarely do I use all our timeouts, but I kept using them.

“The 14 turnovers, I’ll tell you they did a great job. Usually, we get a lot of assists, and we get transition points. We didn’t get as many transition points as normal.”

Star of the Game: Emma Kate Smith was named to the All-tournament team and finished her career with a state championship. Her game-high 14 points, four rebounds, three steals, and an assist were pivotal to the Wildcats’ victory.

Stat sheet: MVP Trinity’s Mya Moskowitz scored 13 points, pulled down four rebounds, and recorded a block.

Both Clements all-tournament members, Leah Childress and Taylor Farrar played solid games. Childress scored 15 points and had seven rebounds, two assists, and a steal. Farrar scored 12 points and had five rebounds, two assists, and a steal.

By the numbers: Trinity shot 31.3 percent from behind the arc, with each shot seemingly more critical than the other. The Wildcats also shot 72.2 percent from the free throw line, including 85.7 percent in the fourth quarter while outscoring the Colts 23-11 in the quarter.

They said it: “What coach isn’t narcissistic? If you’re a coach, you are narcissistic. Because I can outcoach you, and I’ll take yours and beat you, and I’ll take mine and beat you. If you don’t believe in yourself as a coach, you’re probably not a good coach.

“We didn’t show up $60,000 SUVs and get out. We didn’t do that. We scrounged around. I had to drive a couple of vehicles to get here because it was going to cost so much in buses. You should’ve seen the money that was raised for these girls to get here, and it’s coming from people that don’t have anything. They raised and got donations from people that it hurts them to give 20 dollars, so these girls could dream, and that’s what we tried to teach them this year to dream. Because they didn’t have a dream until this year.” – Clements coach Shane Childress