It was a weekend of firsts for area hoops teams.

On Friday night, the Williston girls basketball team advanced to their first final four in program history.

The Trenton boys did the same on Saturday night.

Juniors Mason VunCannon, Marc Micale and Tyler Bullis combined to score 51 points as the top-seed Tigers (25-4) eased past No. 2-seed Hilliard, 67-51, in front of a capacity home crowd in the FHSAA Rural Region 3 Final.

“It’s amazing,” said Trenton coach Eric Bullis. “I’m really just happy for the group of kids that bought in four years ago when I took over. Through some lean time, some tough losses at times, some noise in the system, stayed together, it’s been an extremely resilient bunch, and it’s been a bunch, really, since we got together last May, as a unit that’s been together with one goal in mind, which is to get to the final four and give ourselves a chance to win a state championship.”

The Tigers, winners of 14 in a row, will play in the Rural state semifinals on Tuesday (TBA) at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville.

“I’m happy for our admin and all the former players that were here tonight from generations that were cheering us on,” Bullis said. “We couldn’t have done this without them.”

Trenton overcame a 7-point first-half deficit and led by as many as 20 in the fourth quarter to become the first Trenton team ever to win a region final.

“It’s great, man, it’s great,” Micale said. “This team has been working hard all season long. I think we really deserve to go there. We’re just going to keep playing our hearts out and keep winning.”

VunCannon scored a team-high 19 points on 9-of-17 shooting (53%), along with six rebounds and four assists.

“It feels great,” he said. “A Trenton team hasn’t gone to the final four before, so it feels great to be the first to make history. It also feels good to finally see our work pay off. We’ve worked all this time, day after day, throughout the season, and in the off-season to get to this point. We finally made it. It feels amazing.”

The visiting Red Flashes (18-6) took an early 4-0 lead, but the Tigers answered with an 8-0 run, which ended with a layup and a tear drop in the lane by VunCannon.

Hilliard sophomore King McMillian got off to a fast start with 12 of his team’s 16 points in the opening quarter.

His 3-ball from the top of the key, a fall-away shot, and a long 3-ball from the right wing gave him his own 8-0 run. That overturned a 10-8 Trenton lead into a 16-10 advantage for the visiting team.

A right corner 3-pointer by sophomore Carlton Hall (10 points) gave Hilliard its largest lead of the game, 19-12, less than 30 seconds into the third quarter.

“I thought we did a very poor job defensively on McMillan,” Bullis said. “We wanted to crowd him off the catch, and we let him get loose a little bit. My message has been the same since we started the playoffs, which is be who we are and do what we do. It’s enough. We just play together, share the basketball, spread the scoring, rebound and run the floor. The last three quarters defensively, I thought we were really, really good.”

The Tigers never panicked because they were prepared.

“We practice for moments like that,” Micale said. “I feel like we grind all the time in practice. We’ve been ready for this game. We’ve been ready for games like this. We’re just going to keep going.”

VunCannon (6’5) scored with 15 seconds left in the half to give the Tigers their largest lead, 33-27, and a little energy heading into the locker room.

“It was huge,” he said. “We were trying to claw back there after the first quarter. We knew in the second we needed to grab the momentum, and once we got it, we had to run away with it, so that was one play that really shifted the momentum for us.”

Trenton held Hilliard to just one field goal for over five minutes to start the third quarter and the Tigers extended it to a double-digit lead, 40-29, on consecutive layups by Micale.

Micale (6’4) just missed a double-double with 17 points and eight rebounds. He added three assists and three steals.

“I think a lot of times, he flies under the radar,” Bullis said. “This is his first year on varsity basketball, so the other three guys get a little bit more attention. He’s the best athlete on the floor in pretty much every game we play, and really, maybe the highest ceiling out of anyone on our roster.”

Tyler Bullis finished with 15 points, five rebounds, and five assists, junior Nathan Ridgell added six points and six assists, and junior Noah Owens had five points, five rebounds, one steal, and one block.

Bullis and Micale both shot 57% from the floor, while Ridgell shot 60%.

“We’re truly a team in every sense of the word,” Bullis said. “We’re very, very balanced.”

Last year, Trenton lost at Hilliard in the regional semifinals, but this time, they had home court advantage and a farewell celebration.

“I think we have the best home court advantage in this entire area,” Bullis said. “We have the nicest gym, but you know our crowd has been here through thick and thin, really the entire season, and they showed up big when it mattered most, 100%, absolutely.”

FHSAA Boys Basketball scores – Saturday, Feb. 21

Area teams in bold

Region Semifinals

Class 6A-Region 1
5 Buchholz 57, 8 Forest (Ocala) 39

Class 5A-Region 1
6 Columbia (Lake City) 57, 2 Ponte Vedra 43

Class 4A-Region 2
4 Eastside 47, 1 North Marion (Citra) 44

Class 3A-Region 1
1 Andrew Jackson (Jacksonville) 74, 5 Bradford (Starke) 48
2 Newberry 77, 3 Episcopal (Jacksonville) 49

Class 2A-Region 1
2 The First Academy (Orlando) 65, 6 P.K. Yonge 36

Region Finals

Rural-Region 3
1 Trenton 67, 2 Hilliard 51

Rural-Region 4
2 Williston 56, 1 Wildwood 52