By Thomas Sellers Jr.
ARLINGTON — The Millington Trojans’ history in the Bolton Gymnasium is murky and full of discouraging tales.
A house of horrors for the black and gold, normally the Bolton Wildcats share their school colors of black and blue with their rivals from Millington. Bolton came out swinging and landed a big blow Jan. 11 against the Trojans taking a 15-1 lead.
That surge was enough for Bolton to hold off the Trojans’ comeback effort for a 66-56 victory. The first quarter closed with Millington chipping away at the deficit to make the score 20-9.
Bolton lived up to the cliché of punching Millington in the mouth in the opening minutes including a thunderous dunk.
Millington outscored Bolton 9-5 to close out the opening period.
Then the Trojans continued the comeback winning the second quarter 17-9. Josh Harris got Millington rolling with a layup that made the tally 22-15.
Moments later Seth Grandberry made a bucket at the rim to make the score 24-20. Grandberry’s next basket cut the deficit even more as his jumper made the scoreboard read 25-22.
Then the Trojans got to within a point when BJ Gilmore made a pair of foul shots to make the tally 27-26. Bolton scored the final points of the first half to nurse a 29-26 advantage at the break.
Throughout 2021, the Trojans appeared to erase the trend of being a sluggish third quarter team with outstanding efforts to take leads or put the opposition away.
The first game of 2022, Millington’s old habits returned with the Wildcats going on a 7-0 run to rebuild the lead back to double digits.
Trailing 40-29, Millington got a put-back basket from Diego Reyes to make the score 40-31. Bolton had the answer this time with a 6-0 run to maintain control. The Wildcats had a 52-43 lead entering the fourth quarter.
Entering the game Bolton was 0-7 on the season. And despite Millington cutting the Wildcat lead to 52-45 after a Blake Garner bucket, Bolton outscored the Trojans 14-11 down the stretch for the victory and keeping the Bolton Gym a house of horrors.
