Trinity Valley takes on Lee in the Region XIV men's basketball championship Saturday at Wagstaff Gymnasium. (Michel Alfaro/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

With a new coach and new players, it was the same result for the Trinity Valley Cardinals.

For the second straight year, the Cardinals came into Wagstaff Gymnasium and left as Region XIV Tournament champions.

Trinity Valley — the league’s No. 3 seed and ranked No. 17 in the nation — jumped on top-seeded Lee — No. 5 nationally — and never looked back on the way to an 87-72 victory in Saturday night’s title game.

“We expected to win it,” Trinity Valley first-year head men’s basketball coach Marty Levinson said. “That’s what you come to a tournament for. I’ve got a lot of really talented kids. We’ve worked our butt off. It’s either win or it’s a failure to us, so we wanted to win the whole thing. We probably weren’t going to get an at-large bid, so we had to do that. Our back was against the wall, and that just shows their character and toughness.”

Trinity Valley (26-7) has now won seven regional tournament titles, also doing so in 1982, 1995, 1999, 2016, 2019 and 2023. The Cardinals will make their 11th appearance in the NJCAA Tournament in Hutchinson, Kansas.

For Lee (28-4), it will now have to play the waiting game to see if it does get an at-large bid to the NJCAA Tournament.

Trinity Valley blitzed Lee from the opening tip, quickly jumping out to a 12-4 lead. Later, a Devyn Franklin triple gave him 11 points as the Cardinals led 26-16.

“I said a big prayer before the game,” Franklin said. “I prayed for the team and put it in God’s hands at the end of the day. I listened to my coaches, believed in myself and knew I had to get the job done.”

Franklin finished with a team-high 19 points as one of five Cardinals in double figures, and he also grabbed eight rebounds.

The Cardinals went into halftime with a 46-34 lead.

Makhi Dorsey opened the second half with a make in the lane, and he then knocked down a three to push the score to 51-34.

The Cardinals kept pushing and eventually built their lead to 72-47 with 11:08 remaining.

After Jamaria Clark made a triple for the Navigators, Dorsey was injured on the offensive end and didn’t return. He was on crutches after the game, finishing with 12 points.

“As a player, starting every game, you’ve just got to encourage them all the time from the bench,” Dorsey said. “As long as they can hear you, encourage them and cheer them on. There’s nothing that can stop us but us. As long as you trust your teammates, you can do whatever you want.”

“That was bad,” Franklin said. “Makhi went down. Losing a leader, Makhi told me, come on Dev, keep the team together, we’ve been here before. We kept the team together, kept rolling and got the dub.”

It got a little shaky for the Cardinals as the Navigators — down 76-53, stormed back with a 19-4 run to cut the score to 80-72 with 2:17 remaining on a putback by Bryce Smith.

But after a turnover by Trinity Valley, the Cardinals responded on defense with multiple blocked shots, and Lee didn’t score the rest of the way.

“It feels great,” said Ahamad Bynum, who scored 18 points. “We just stayed together and stayed the course.”

Trinity Valley needed to rally on Friday to defeat Panola as Bynum’s block set up Denim Johnson’s game-winning layup with 23 seconds left to lift the Cardinals to a 72-70 win to advance to Saturday.

“I feel like we had the momentum coming in,” Johnson said. “We knew what we were capable of. We all had in our heads if we’re not worried about winning, we shouldn’t be on the floor. As soon as we got on the floor, we just checked into winning.”

And win they did.

“It feels great,” Johnson said. “It’s my first time ever going, first time cutting down the nets. So I’m excited to go there and perform and show what we can do.”

Johnson finished with 12 points, six rebounds and four assists.

The fifth double figure scorer for the Cardinals was Bullard High School graduate Garrett Nuckolls, a freshman who scored 10 points.

“It feels great,” Nuckolls said. “I’ve played on this court so many times. And I felt like I had a great performance this tournament. It just feels amazing to help these guys get this.”

De’Vion Lavergne led Lee with 20 points. DaCannon Wickware scored 18 points and grabbed nine rebounds, and Clark added 12 points.