Breakout Player of the Year: Trinity Wilson

Ready or not, when a talented female basketball player enters their freshman year standing 6-foot-3 and built like a textbook Division 1 big, they’re going to draw a lot of eyeballs. In the case of [player_tooltip player_id="335641" first="Trinity" last="Wilson"], however, there was nothing to see. Sidelined by surgery to correct a congenital condition in her knees, all Wilson could do was put in the work to recover and recondition and get ready for a comeback. All we could do was wait. Fast forward many months and we have now witnessed greatness in the making. From a tentative beginning in the early going last fall, through a series of highs and lows in the dead of winter, Trinity put in the work, persevered through the tough stuff, and emerged as one of the top post players in Minnesota having proved herself against the best of the best. It has been fun to watch and we are pleased to reward Trinity for her efforts with the Prep Girls Hoops Breakout Player of the Year Award. “She is very deserving of that!” said Lakeville North coach Shelly Clemons. “Trinity has worked really hard the past year to not only rehab that knee but also lose weight and get into really good shape. She came into the season really excited and happy to work. It was a big year of growth for her mentally and maturity-wise. In the beginning of the season she wasn’t finishing that well, but you have to remember that she didn’t play at all her freshmen year, and had only been in a few games as an 8th grader, so she really came in with little to no varsity experience. She was frustrated in the beginning but mentally it was a very big area of growth for her.” The story of Trinity’s season can really be framed in the context of two games against Rochester John Marshall where she came up against one of the state’s very best forwards – top 10-ranked senior [player_tooltip player_id="12722" first="Lilly" last="Meister"]. The Indiana commit has length, athleticism, skill and a long record of success at every level. When Lakeville North travelled to Rochester in the first week of January, Meister delivered a masterclass in how to play the 4/5 spot. “That was a real eye-opening game for Trinity,” Clemons said. “She couldn’t guard Lilly off the dribble, she couldn’t guard her inside, she couldn’t finish against her. Knowing that she was in our section, that gave Trinity a kind of measuring stick of ‘Here’s where you are, here’s where you need to get.’  She knew she had to step up.” Wilson did what great players do – she went to work. Hard. Gradually she got better, became more confident, added some weapons to her arsenal and prepared for the inevitable rematch. “She worked really hard and started going up strong and finishing,” Clemons said. “She was fading away a lot in the beginning and now she was going up and through people and finishing closer to the basket. She started feeling more confident in February and towards the end of the month she got a lot better defensively, better at being able to keep people in front of her. Every team figured that whoever she was guarding, they would put them out on the perimeter and they could just drive. That worked in the beginning of the season but by the end of the season she was getting a hand up and contesting, moving her feet, staying low and keeping people away from the basket. Overall she just really got confident, she gained experience and it all started to click.” [caption id="attachment_404762" align="alignnone" width="339"]<img class="wp-image-404762" src="https://prephoops-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/pgh/uploads/2022/03/Trinity-Wilson_Lakeville-North-288x300.png" alt="" width="339" height="353" /> Cassie Rochel helped Wilson prepare for battle.[/caption] On March 5, Lakeville North eliminated Farmington in the Section 1AAAA semifinal to advance to the section title game against John Marshall six days later. Clemons and her staff went all out that week to out prepare Wilson for the rematch, watching a lot of film with her, spending a great deal of time studying Meister’s tendencies, helping Wilson understand what she would have to do if the Panthers were going to knock off the Rockets. They also brought in a male athlete to play the role of the upcoming opponent in practice and invited one of the most successful post players in school history to help – 2010 graduate Cassie Rochel, Minnesota’s Miss Basketball that year, who went on to play at the University of Wisconsin and professionally overseas. The preparation paid off in spades. “She came out on fire,” Clemons recalled of the opening moments of the game. “I think when she made that first shot she kind of got rolling from there.” This time it was Wilson who delivered the lessons, scoring 22 points in one of the premier post performances by any player this high school season. The Panthers prevailed over John Marshall that night. Their reward was a first-round match-up against the eventual state Class 4A champions from Hopkins. North got beat by the Royals, of course, but not before Wilson proved she could go toe to toe with top-rated senior and Arizona commit [player_tooltip player_id="12712" first="Maya" last="Nnaji"] and more than hold her own. Let’s just say there was a ton of buzz about Trinity at Williams Arena, and it was well-deserved. <strong>By the numbers</strong> Prior to that ill-fated meeting with John Marshall in January, Wilson was averaging about 8 points per game. In the subsequent 20 games she doubled that while shooting nearly 50 percent from the field. She also averaged 10.7 rebounds a night, finishing the season with 322 total boards. That tied her with Rochel for the second-most ever in a single season, just 5 behind record-holder and Gopher great Liz Podominick. Wilson would no doubt have eclipsed that mark, too, had a late-season game with Prior Lake not been cancelled. After just one year she’s already 27th on the career rebounds list! Great stuff. Along the way Wilson went from being an unranked prospect at this time last year to 25th in the fall to 19th in February before that stretch run of success. Let’s just say she is trending in the right direction with plenty of interest up to the high-major level. Her size, strength, skill and mobility make her a formidable package. She can punish you down low, step outside to make shots and make life miserable when you’ve got the basketball. She is also one of the youngest players in the Class of 2024, with an October birthday. “I think she has definitely established herself now,” Clemons said. “She is really a difficult post player to guard because of her physical strength. The other thing that needs to be highlighted is what a great passer she is... Now that she’s got that drop-step power move down – she can go right shoulder or left shoulder – I want to see her adding some up-and-under, some more complex moves inside, to be a little bit craftier.” Trinity doesn’t have to look far for athletic role models. Dad played football for the University of Minnesota and is currently on Coach P.J. Fleck’s staff there. Mom was a member of Coach Geno Auriemma’s 1994 national championship team at the University of Connecticut. Now Trinity is carving her own path. “They definitely have high expectations for her,” Clemons said, “but she is a kid that can handle it.” <strong>HONORABLE MENTIONS</strong> [player_tooltip player_id="339129" first="Ja’Kahla" last="Craft"] <strong>– 2024 guard, St. Michael-Albertville</strong> Ja’Kahla’s journey has been well-chronicled here this season. From unknown newcomer to state tournament standout, it has been quite the journey for Craft. She averaged a dozen points per game and was a key piece at both ends of the floor for the Knights, who made it all the way to the state championship game. We weren’t sure at the beginning of the season what Ja’Kahla had to offer. Now everyone who has been paying attention knows she offers an awful lot and there’s more to come. [player_tooltip player_id="215985" first="Olivia" last="Pawlicki"] <strong>– 2024 forward, Shakopee</strong> The Sabers improved so much year over year, and much of that enhancement is due to the growth in Olivia’s game. The #13-rated prospect in the Prep Girls Hoops Class of 2024 went from a player loaded with promise to a player able to dominate the proceedings on a nightly basis. This long, lanky, multi-dimensional talent has officially arrived. [player_tooltip player_id="346166" first="Autumn" last="McCall"] <strong>– 2025 forward, Centennial</strong> It has been a season of growth for McCall, who has transformed herself from a quiet, tentative kid who offered only flashes of potential one year ago into the kind of player who can be in the starting lineup of a state tournament game and look every bit the part. Now a varsity standout, the possibilities are endless for Autumn who is barely scratching the surface of her abilities.