'Trying to get better every day': Trent Santos looks to continue success at college

WORCESTER — It’s safe to say Trent Santos enjoyed his senior year at Taunton High School.

The 2021-22 Taunton Boys Athlete of the Year, Santos starred for the Tigers in both football and basketball, recording 49 catches for 734 yards and eight touchdown on the gridiron as a wide receiver, helping Taunton reach the Division 1 playoffs and being named a 2021 Taunton Daily Gazette Football All-Scholastic and on the court, the then-senior guard averaged 26.4 points per game, setting a career high for most points scored in a game as he dropped 46 points against Oliver Ames, while helping the Tigers win their first ever outright Hockomock League title and becoming just the 12th Taunton boys basketball player to reach 1,000 career points and was named the 2021-22 Taunton Daily Gazette Boys Basketball Player of the Year and Hockomock League MVP.

"Last year was an amazing year," Santos said. "We won the Hockomock outright for the first time, which was a great accomplishment, which to me, is more important than 1,000 points, but that was always a goal of mine as well and I’m really proud of my career at Taunton."

The 2022 Dave Cowens Award recipient for boys basketball, Santos kept busy over the summer as he earned a spot in the A Shot For Life Gauntlet and All-Star Game for basketball and was also selected for the 2022 Massachusetts Shriners All-Star Game, in which he caught a touchdown.

"I had a great summer," Santos said. "A Shot For Life is for an amazing cause and they have a great organization there and they’re doing an awesome job for cancer research and I had a great time doing that. The Shriners game was awesome, I was blessed to be a part of that. Catching a touchdown in that game means a lot and I’ll always remember that and I was really excited to be a part of both of those things."

Now a freshman at Assumption University and a member of their men's basketball team, Santos has yet to make his debut for the Greyhounds but continues to put in the work day in and day out to adjust to the jump from high school to the NCAA Division II.

"It’s a lot different from high school for sure," Santos said. "When I first came here, the athletes, the players, everyone works hard. The pace of play, and all of those things, but I think the biggest difference is just the athletes in the size of the players honestly and I’m just trying to get used to it and just trying to find my way."

While he may not be getting game time at the moment, he is constantly working on learning and improving his own game so that when the time comes, he will be up to the challenge and ready to prove himself as a college basketball player.

"Even though I’m not playing right now, I’m so locked in to the games, to practice and everything just trying to get better every day because this is Division II basketball," Santos said. "It’s high level basketball and I wasn’t coming here with no expectations, I’m just trying to get better every day and earn my way because I believe in myself and my coaches believe in me and I work my tail off, so I think eventually it’s going to work out."

He knows it takes had work and a strong work ethic to accomplish his goals, but that's never stopped him before.

Santos comes from a family with a strong athletic background. His father Steve Santos was himself a standout Taunton athlete as a quarterback, later taking his talents to Curry College where he's enshrined in the Colonels Hall of Fame. His younger brother Troy is currently a junior at Taunton and has emerged as a basketball star in his own right for the Tigers, dropping 44 points in the season opener against Sharon. He recalls waking up at 5 a.m. daily with his brother to start working on their shooting, a work ethic that's certainly been noticed by his coaches.

"He presented an incredible work ethic," Taunton basketball coach Charlie Dacey said. "His work ethic was beyond what any coach would hope for."

"Absolutely great kid, a phenomenal worker," Taunton football coach Brad Sidwell said. "Just based on his work ethic I knew he'd be successful and I'm just looking forward to how he does."

Even his older teammates at Assumption have taken notice, including junior forward and former Bishop Connolly standout Cooper Creek.

"He’s a good bloke," Creek said. "He comes in and works out a lot which is an important sign especially from a freshman. You want to have your freshmen coming in and really setting the tone saying ‘hey if I’m working out, putting the sophomores, juniors and seniors on notice, like hey, we’ve got to get going’ and putting the pressure on which I think is overall great for the program because if you’ve got freshmen putting pressure on the older guys to get in the gym and work harder, then you’re heading in the right direction, so especially with Trent he gets in here all of the time."

Like Sidwell, Creek also believes the work Santos is putting in now will make all the difference in the end.

"He’s definitely grown his game in the last three months and just from practices and being one of the main ball handlers on the team when he comes in and continuing to learn the offense and continuing to get better on defense," Creek said. "If he keeps doing what he’s doing, I think he’ll be finding himself in a pretty good spot down the road."

Santos himself said he takes inspiration from watching Creek and the other upperclassmen.

"(Creek's) a role model for me here for sure but there’s a couple other guys like that that I’m really looking at as role models on the team and learning from and proving myself as the hardest worker, bringing that from high school to college and just keeping that with me," Santos said.

Growing up, Santos quickly developed a love for athletics, first with football before later adding basketball to his repertoire, saying he quickly fell in love with the fast pace nature and the work ethic involved in it. On the court, he grew up playing with Tristan Herry and Faisal Mass, with the trio going on to be the focal point of the Tigers' back-to-back Hockomock Kelley-Rex titles while Santos and Mass also excelled on the gridiron for Taunton.

Now, all three are college athletes, with Herry playing basketball for Division III Wheaton College, scoring a season-high 14 points off the bench against Worcester State while Mass plays Division I FCS football for Stonehill College, with the freshman defensive end recording three tackles in three games for the Skyhawks during their debut Division I FCS campaign.

For Santos, he couldn't be prouder than to see where the three of them have taken themselves athletically.

"I’m so happy for them, because I always saw it in them and now for them to be excelling with Faisal playing Division I football after just starting out playing football as a freshman or an eighth grader, it’s amazing for him to be there," Santos said. "Tristan he had 14 points in a game (against Worcester State), so it’s just awesome to see because I’ve always believed in him and now that he’s shining on that level, I’m so proud of him."

The feeling is mutual among them.

"It's always good to see the family succeed," Mass said. "We're all doing our things in college now, so yeah it's good."

For Dacey, Santos was always a scorer he could rely on to come in clutch.

"His points were invaluable," Dacey said. "It came at times when we absolutely needed the points, and I can think of at least three games where he absolutely bailed us out with difficult shots, but because of all of his work he had the confidence to take them and he had the ability to make them."

Santos reached the 1,000 point mark in the final game of the regular season down in New Bedford, on a court named after former Assumption player and legendary Whalers boys basketball head coach Ed Rodrigues, and it was something Dacey said his teammates all wanted to see him accomplish.

"I had talked to the kids about his effort to achieve 1,000 points and they were not in any manner, shape or form put off by it," Dacey said. "They wanted to see him get it, so obviously it was within a team concept that didn't disturb anybody, which is even more important when someone pursues points like that and gets them."

Despite his accolades and reputation for being one of the best shooters in the MIAA, Santos had yet to commit to a college by the end of his high school basketball career though had a few options at the table and, in the end, Assumption seemed to him to be the best fit and he announced his commitment to the school via Twitter in April

"I always wanted to strive to play at the highest level I could play at, so coming out of high school, any level of college basketball is a great accomplishment but here at this level, I always wanted to be a Division II basketball player and it was always a goal of mine," Santos said. "I knew I probably wasn’t going to play right away but I believe in myself and here, I just love Coach (Scott) Faucher and Coach (John) Ginnity and (Andrew) Bronstein and (Garvin) McAlliser, they give me confidence and they teach me things every day and I just knew that this is where I was going to become the best basketball player and succeed academically as well and it just felt like a home environment so I just chose to come here."

For Faucher, he knew Santos would be a fit for the Greyhounds.

"(Santos is a) selfless individual who will do anything that helps the team," Faucher said. "Most importantly, (he is a) positive role models in his communities and always conduct himself in a positive manner on and off the court. From a basketball perspective, (Santos is one) of the best shooters who I have ever been around and he's constantly working to improve other areas of his games."

While he works towards his his goal of being a starter, Santos has plenty of fans back in the Silver City who believe in him.

"Trent is just an outstanding young man," Taunton athletic director Mark Ottavianelli said. "He cares about the game, he cares about his teammates (and) he cares about school and his family. He’s just a quality young man who is just an excellent role model and was a leader in our school and a good person. He deserves all of the accolades he gets."

"At that level, Division II, it's a learning experience," Dacey said. "It's not a straight line progression from high school to college, there's a strength issue there, there's a stamina issue there and there's an intelligence issue there. They're bigger, faster and stronger and there's not much doubt in my mind that he's going to respond in whatever way he can to match the bigger, faster, stronger concept and I think with his learning curve he'll get smarter and thus become a better player."

Likewise, Santos believes in Taunton, and has tipped the boys basketball program to continue the success started by him, Herry, Mass and others before them this winter.

"I’m really excited for them because I know my brother is getting up at 5 a.m. every day and getting shots (in) like we did last year, so I’m expecting a big year from him personally," Santos said. "They have a strong team coming back and I’m really looking forward to seeing what they do this year. I think they’re going to make a big push in the tournament this year, I’m really excited for it."

Taunton Daily Gazette sports reporter Cameron Merritt can be reached at cmerritt@tauntongazette.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @CamMerritt_News. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to the Taunton Daily Gazette today.

This article originally appeared on The Taunton Daily Gazette: Taunton's Trent Santos playing basketball at Assumption College