FW Nolan Catholic holds off Euless Trinity

By Kevin Casas

Special to the Star-Telegram

Fort Worth Nolan Catholic's Michael Hoffman stayed patient in his matchup with Euless Trinity's Myles Turner.

After he scored 12 of his 23 points in the final period to lift the 16-0 Vikings took a 56-47 win, he earned MVP honors in game one of the inaugural DFW Basketball Challenge at Wilkerson-Greines Activity Center.

"I just wasn't very aggressive and I think we all started to do more as we got more confident," Hoffman said. "We stayed in it and we know they're a good team, but we're good too."

Hoffman connected on four of Nolan's 10 consecutive free throws to close out the game, but he began to open up his scoring chances by going more at the 6-foot-11 Turner.

He worked the baseline for a reverse layup to open the fourth quarter and grabbed two more layups before stepping out on the perimeter to knock down a jumper.

"That's what we want him to do, and he just needed to believe in that," Nolan coach Steve Prud'homme said. "He's got to be more aggressive taking it to the rim. Our goal is to get him to be more assertive in the middle."

That was a tall task against Turner, who got into foul trouble late in the game, but managed 11 points, five rebounds and two blocked shots.

Guard Chris Sarratt chipped in 15 for Nolan.

Nolan, which shot 39 percent from the floor, took a 10-2 lead to open the game. Trinity (8-8) then started to work the ball inside on baseline cuts for easy layups.

That left Mike Udume to heat up on the perimeter and get Trinity a lead. He knocked down three 3-pointers in the third quarter and the Trojans led 39-38 going to the fourth quarter.

Udume finished with 18 points and Maurice White had 12, but Trinity couldn't solve the riddle late, scoring only two field goals on 12 shots down the stretch.

Trinity was 19 of 54 from the field for the game, shooting 35 percent.

"Michael's a good player, we've played against each other before," Turner said. "He played a great game and we had an off-night."

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