Dularge Middle sets bar for educating the poor
February 22, 2011Thursday, Feb. 24
February 24, 2011Vandebilt Catholic girls’ basketball coach Kathy Luke rose from her chair and took one last peek at the scoreboard Thursday night before shaking her head in disappointment.
No, the No. 3-seed Lady Terriers did not lose in the opening round of the playoffs to No. 30 Belaire.
But don’t tell that to Luke or the Vandebilt players who believe the team’s 57-48 opening round win won’t be enough if the team hopes to cut down the nets and bring home another state championship.
“We’re young and maybe they were nervous, I don’t know, but it sure was uncharacteristic of us,” Luke said. “I’m always concerned with defense because defense wins championships. We were not very good on defense. Offense will take care of itself, but defensively, we just weren’t very good. And that bothers me at this point in the year.”
What caused Luke’s ire was the team’s rebounding woes and turnovers, which led to easy offense for Belaire in the opening round.
After allowing less than 40 points per game in the district season, the Lady Terriers allowed Belaire countless extra possessions Thursday with offensive rebounds and turnovers, which in turn led to their 48 points.
“We’re averaging 50 points per game and we’re holding people to just 36,” Luke said. “So that bothers me that we let a fourth place team come in here and score 48 points on us. That’s ridiculous. That’s the problem I have with it.”
Aside from the defensive struggle, Vandebilt did take some positives into the second round of the playoffs, most notably the sharp shooting of sophomore Jasmine Howard, who scored 26 points.
Howard, who was a reserve player on last year’s state championship team, said she told herself she needed to step up her game in the playoffs this year with no Theresa Plaisance, Sybil Washington or Shikera Ross to turn to this time around.
“Today was definitely one of my best games, even though as a team, we played horrible,” Howard said. “I just told myself with the playoffs starting that I just needed to shape my game up and work out the mistakes and just play harder.”
Howard’s emergence as a sophomore marks a bit of a youth movement for the Lady Terriers who don’t have a single senior after losing a big senior class a year ago.
Sophomore D’Arcy Draper said because of that, she doesn’t believe Vandebilt is defending a state championship. But she acknowledged a definite bulls-eye exists on the back of she and her teammates nonetheless.
“We lost a lot of seniors last year, so a lot of people said we wouldn’t get this far,” Draper said. “They told us, ‘Luckily y’all don’t have any seniors this year, so y’all won’t do very well this year, but next year y’all will have a solid team.’ So it’s good to prove everybody wrong and show them that we can be pretty good this year, too.”
But then again, if things don’t change, Luke, Draper and Howard all acknowledge next year might come sooner than the Lady Terriers hope.
Vandebilt took on Parkway Monday night in the second round with a score not yet available as of press time.
Against Parkway, or going forward, Luke knows things must get better than they were against Belaire, or the Lady Terriers will fall short of another state title run.
“We’re going to fix it,” Luke said. “We’re going to fix it. If we don’t, Parkway will beat us. It’s really a simple formula. We don’t fix it, Parkway beats us. But we’ll get it done.”
Elsewhere in the Tri-parish area:
Where Vandebilt soured over its “ugly” win, several Tri-parish teams were left picking up the pieces after not being quite as lucky.
In Class 5A, Terrebonne, South Lafourche and Central Lafourche were all eliminated in the opening round of the playoffs.
The Lady Tigers dropped a 62-54 decision at the hands of Dutchtown, while the Lady Tarpons and Lady Trojans each lost by 20 or more points to Ponchatoula and Southwood, respectively.
In Class 4A, Ellender hoped to join Vandebilt in the round of 16, but the Lady Patriots fell short, losing 84-61 to No. 10-seeded Leesville.
In 3A, Patterson entered the playoffs as the last team in. But all hopes of a Cinderella run were smashed by No. 1 St. James in a 94-29 first round defeat.
And in Class 1A, Central Catholic also fell, dropping a 40-39 heartbreaker to St. Mary’s.
All wasn’t lost, for Tri-parish schools, however, as E.D. White cruised to the second round with an easy win over Port Allen in the Class 3A playoffs.
