VooDoo works on barbecue, too
January 7, 2014
Carla Bernard Sapia
January 8, 2014
A few mid-season adjustments have the H.L. Bourgeois boys’ basketball team playing its best hoops of the season.
After starting the year 6-5 in its first 11 games, H.L. Bourgeois decided to make a few tweaks to its lineup and substitution patterns. The results have been outstanding.
Since the changes, the Braves have won five consecutive games and now enter District 7-5A play at 11-5 overall for the year.
“We played a lot of two-post system in the summer and earlier in the season,” said Braves coach Andrew Caillouet. “In the last five games, we’ve played a two-post system from the start of the game and for the majority of the games, and all three of our post guys are playing excellent. I think we definitely have a post presence now.”
That post presence was recently on display in H.L. Bourgeois’ 66-59 victory over rival Ellender last Friday. In that game, the Braves dominated the Patriots in the paint, out-rebounding their opponent and forcing Ellender into several poor-percentage shots.
It was perhaps the Braves’ best victory of the season, and their first against Ellender (14-3) in three tries. It was also one of their most resilient victories.
H.L. Bourgeois fell behind, 7-0, to start the game, but never lost its composure. By the early part of the second period, they had caught up to Ellender and then went on a roll late in the half, going on a 14-0 run to close the half with a 33-26 lead.
In the third quarter, they opened up a 14-point lead after getting back-to-back 3-pointers from DeSean Walker (10 points) and Marlin Bonvillain (team-high 21 points), and by the fourth quarter, H.L. Bourgeois led by as many as 17 points.
By the end of the night, the Braves had sent Ellender to its third straight loss after the Patriots had begun the year 14-0.
“You can’t predict it,” Ellender coach Cornell Scott said of the Braves-Patriots rivalry. “You don’t know who’s going to show up. Coach Caillouet has some guys that showed up big for them (Friday). That was kind of evident. We knew some kids were going to do well, but his role players really stepped up and helped them out.”
Whether it’s the role players or the starters, H.L. Bourgeois has been getting contributions from both the starting lineup and the bench in recent games.
Tylenn Scott and Takharri Gasery (13 points vs. Ellender) are two juniors playing the post that have come on strong, but the Braves are also getting strong play from freshmen such as Daquarious James and Chance Gasery.
“We’ve started bringing some younger kids to the starting lineup and then we started bringing some of the older kids off the bench,” Caillouet said. “It’s sparked us because the younger kids have stepped up and started playing harder from the start, and in turn the older kids are contributing big-time minutes.”
But as Caillouet said, it all leads back to post play.
“That’s the difference in our team right now,” he said. “You’ve got two kids in Tylenn and Takharri that are both 6’4” and long, and D’Aaron Davis is probably 6’2” and is athletic. So we’ve got three guys that are probably playing bigger than what they are, and that frees it up for guys like (Bonvillain) and Dovante Dickerson and Gasery.
“All three of the guards did a great job rebounding the ball because the big guys helped clear some things out. Rebounding is probably the strongest part of our team right now.”
Now with district play beginning this week, the Braves appear to be peaking at the right time. Friday’s win against Ellender was big for power points, but the Braves know that district play is still the biggest factor in determining which teams make the playoffs.
Given their recent success going into district play, the Braves’ confidence level is the highest it’s been all season.
They think they are positioning themselves to make some significant waves.
“I believe anybody heading into district, if they don’t believe they should win the games if they do what they’re supposed to do, they’re crazy” Caillouet said. “Our kids truly believe that and we think we’re going to find ways to win games now. The bottom line is I felt earlier this year that we just weren’t playing hard enough and with the changes we made came a lot more hard play, and when you play hard, good things happen.
“There’s no doubt we’re heading in the right direction.”
ELSEWHERE IN THE
TRI-PARISH AREA
While the H.L. Bourgeois boys’ basketball team shows that it means business, the Thibodaux girls are making their mark on the Bayou District.
The Lady Tigers are 11-3 at press-time, and are establishing themselves among the powers in Class 5A competition.
Thibodaux is already 2-0 in district play with each victory coming in blowout fashion.
The Lady Tigers defeated South Lafourche 58-39 on Dec. 19. They followed that win up with a 64-9 thumping of Central Lafourche last Friday.
Arguably Thibodaux’s toughest district test will be Destrehan – a 15-1 foe.
The teams meet on Jan. 14.
CAILLOUET
