Unheralded senior steps up big in Patriots’ first-round win

With senior standout Trevon Lewis sitting on the bench with foul trouble, the Ellender boys’ basketball team needed an offensive lift in their first round playoff game against O. Perry Walker on Friday.

The teams were tied at 16 heading to halftime, putting the No. 7 Patriots in jeopardy of being upset.

But help arrived in the second half in the name of senior Kardero Dixon, who scored a season-high 20 points to lead the Patriots to a 60-46 win.

“It really hurt us when Trevon was on the sidelines,” Dixon said. “I was thinking to myself at halftime that someone had to step up. I didn’t know who it was going to be, but as the game went on, we found out and it ended up being me. I’m just happy I was able to help out my team and take a load off my teammate’s back.”

Dixon came into the game averaging just eight points per game. The 6-foot-2-inch senior had cracked double digits in only nine of the team’s 36 games on the season.

Lewis praised the play of his teammate and said down the stretch of the playoffs, Dixon and the rest of the Patriots will need to be more aggressive offensively if the team wants to continue to advance.

“It’s pretty nice that when I get in foul trouble, we have guys like (Kardero) who can step up and elevate their games,” Lewis said. “Tonight, they came up big. We couldn’t have won without that.”

The opening half of the game resembled another prep sport played on Friday nights – football. Both teams played a rough and tumble, aggressive style of defense that kept points to a premium and sent several players to the floor.

“It was an amazingly physical game,” said Patriots coach Scott Gauthreaux. “I thought it was rough from the start to the end. The defensive intensity was definitely there on both sides. If we can guard these guys, we can guard anybody.”

Dixon thought the game was one of the most physical he’s ever played.

“A few of us will probably need to break out the ice packs,” Dixon joked. “It got pretty rough out there. We knew it would. Everyone 1-to-32 in these playoffs are tough.”

That physicality got Lewis caught up in foul trouble throughout the game as he fouled out in the fourth quarter after having scored 13 points – eight below his average for the season.

But things opened up in the final quarter offensively for the Patriots, who stayed true to their famous slogan, “32 Minutes of Pain,” and outscored O.P. Walker 26-16 in the final quarter.

“I knew it was going to happen for us,” Gauthreaux said. “The first half, we defended, but couldn’t hit any shots. We knew in the second half, we’d start to score.”

With the win, the Patriots moved on and played at home against No. 10 Cecilia on Tuesday night. The score of that game was not available at press time.

Cecilia defeated Helen Cox 67-59 in the opening round.

With the first win under their belts, Dixon believes the Patriots are zeroed in on making a long playoff run.

“We stepped up and got a tough one today. Sometimes getting your hands dirty helps you as a team,” he said.

Elsewhere in the Tri-parish area:

The first round of the playoffs were not kind to very many teams in the Tri-parish area, as the Patriots were just one of three teams who survived to see a second game.

In Class 5A, the Bayou District went winless as South Lafourche lost to Sulphur, Thibodaux was defeated by Slidell and Central Lafourche was downed by Westgate.

Ellender was the only local team to advance in Class 4A as Vandebilt and Morgan City were defeated.

E.D. White is still alive in Class 3A, after scoring a 44-31 win against Kaplan in the opening round. Patterson and Franklin were both knocked out of the playoffs on Friday.

In Class B, Houma Christian is still standing after earning a dramatic two-point win against Maurepas. They moved on to play Centerville on Tuesday.