By James Costello Sports Writer
INDIANAPOLIS — At the beginning of the 2008-09 season, few observers expected Triton to still be playing basketball at the end of March.
The Trojans had lost four starters and seven seniors total from the previous season, and most were expecting a rebuilding season. Instead, Triton’s younger players stepped up to fill in the gaps, maintaining the same philosophies that had won the program its first state title a year before, while modifying some of the Xs and Os to better suit the new lineup. Although they fell short of a historic repeat Class A state championship with Saturday’s 66-55 loss to Jac-Cen-Del, the ‘08-09 Trojans can still hold their heads high after an impressive 24-3 run that ended at Conseco Fieldhouse for a second straight year.

“The emotions are a lot different,” said Triton head coach Jason Groves after the championship loss. “Last year was obviously how we wanted to end our season and how we wanted our seniors to go out, and this year it’s very disappointing because these kids, like I said, have worked so hard to get to this point. They deserve another championship the way that they responded this year from last year. But I don’t think that takes away from what these kids accomplished for our program and for Triton.”
What they’ve accomplished, along with last year’s team, is to transform expectations for Triton basketball.
Coming into the 2007-08 season, the program could boast five sectional championships, but few forays deep into the state tournament. Triton had won two regional championships — one a Class A regional title from 2000 and another dating back to 1965 prior to the advent of  class basketball — and the program’s success the past two seasons has doubled that number to four while also earning the school its first two semistate titles and the ‘08 state crown.
Additionally, Triton had only one 20-win season — the 1965 squad finished 20-6 after its groundbreaking sectional championship run — in 45 years prior to last year, and the area could claim just two such distinctions with Bourbon High School posting a 21-6 record in 1950 before Triton was founded. The past two seasons, Trojan basketball has recorded a sterling 49-5 record, giving it one of the best records in the state regardless of class over the two-year cycle, and establishing Triton not as a one-hit wonder but a name to be respected throughout Indiana.
“Last year I was able to sit back and just kind of be along for the ride,” said junior point guard Ben Montalbano. “This year we wanted to get back here, and we knew that we could. To be a part of that is an honor.
“It’s remarkable,” he added. “Last year was great. This year we lost everybody. Nobody gave us much of a shot, but these guys, the seniors, they got us all the way, even guys like Cody (Carpenter) and Zac (Moriarty). We wouldn’t have gotten through regionals without Zac, and Cody stepped in and played great in semistate, played great today.”
“I think that after last year we just wanted to work real hard this season and get back,” said Joel Meister, one of five seniors and two starters to cap off their careers with Triton at Saturday’s game. “A lot of times if teams get down here one year, they kind of just expect it the next year. I think we figured that was the case, and that we’d have to work hard all season to get back down here again.”
Changing expectations within and outside the program is something Triton players and coaches have made a mission over the course of the past two seasons. It’s a cliche to say that winning breeds winning, but it certainly seems to be the case for the Trojans.
“We talked at the beginning of the season about not letting our expectations come down from last year,” said Groves. “These kids waited for their opportunity to come. Some of these kids, especially Ben and Joel, probably could’ve started for a lot of varsity teams last year. They waited patiently for their opportunity and when their opportunity came they really took advantage of it. Some of the programs in our area, this is probably how they measure the success of a team, by state championships. That’s kind of where we want to be with the program. We want to think you can get to the state finals each and every year. We want the kids to believe that.”
As this year’s seniors leave the program, they hope they’ve passed the torch onto next year’s squad and those entering the program to carry on the traditions they helped start in 2007.
“It’s nice to be a role model for all the younger kids,” said Meister. “I hope that Triton basketball just continues to have these successful seasons.”
“To me, it comes down to a personal thing,” said two-year starter Colton Keel. “If you want it, it just shows that you can do whatever you want, but you have to put in the time, the sweat and the man hours and actually work hard to get better and become a state-contender team.”