Williston junior Jaden Magee had a double-double with 18 points and 14 rebounds and the Red Devils held off Trenton, 60-52, in a Rural state semifinal game at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville on Tuesday.

Williston (21-7) now plays Crossroad Academy (Quincy) on Friday for the Rural state championship.

Williston took the lead in the first quarter and never looked back, leading by as many as 16 points in the third quarter.

Trenton (25-5), making its first state semifinal appearance in program history, got within four points in the final quarter, but that was as close as they could get.

Marc Micale led Trenton with 14 points.

“They (Trenton) don’t make a lot of mistakes, but I thought we pressured them into some mistakes tonight,” Williston coach Jim Ervin said.

The first quarter was back-and-forth between the two teams before Williston settled for a 14-11 lead at the end of the period. Sophomore Jac Edwards scored six of his 17 points in the opening period, with Magee adding four points for the Red Devils.

Williston didn’t trail after that and began to open up its lead in the second quarter, taking a 28-21 lead into halftime.

Part of the success came from Williston outrebounding a taller Trenton team, 45-33, including 17-12 on the offensive glass.

“Not all stat lines are true, maybe, but they were bigger than us,” Ervin said. “We are pretty athletic as a basketball team as a whole, and I think our athleticism showed up in the game tonight.”

Magee took over in the third quarter, scoring eight points as Williston extended its advantage, leading by as much as 16 at 41-25 with 4:22 left in the third quarter.

But Trenton wouldn’t go away, and they cut the lead to four early in the fourth quarter. Senior Hunter Hilliard hit back-to-back 3-pointers in the third quarter, and junior Tyler Bullis added seven of his nine points in that stretch as well.

“I think we played incredibly hard,” Trenton coach Eric Bullis said. “When we were down 16, that really could have gotten away from us, but we dug deep and we cut it to four a couple of times, but couldn’t get any closer than that. They took us out of a lot of what we like to do offensively, so hats off to them.”

Williston was 7-of-11 from the free-throw line in the fourth quarter to keep the Tigers at bay.

Edwards added 17 points and nine rebounds for Williston. But Magee was the story on this night.

“In one year, he (Jaden) has gone from a kid who was struggling to get on the court to a kid who is a college prospect now, and he’s only a junior,” Ervin said.