Ellender girls control destiny

Round 1 went to the Ellender girls basketball team in their showdown matchup with rival and close competitor South Lafourche.

The Lady Patriots survived a strong and gutsy performance from the Lady Tarpons in the House of Pain on Friday night, using a last-second basket from Orieon James to secure a 63-61 win.

South Lafourche had multiple opportunities in the final 10 seconds of the game to tie or take the lead, but every opportunity wasn’t meant to be. The Lady Tarpons missed free throws, had multiple turnovers and narrowly missed a last-second heave from halfcourt, bringing the game to its final tally.

With the win, Ellender is now 5-0 in district play, while the Lady Tarpons dropped to 4-1. The two teams are unquestionably the best teams in District 7-4A, and they’ve all routed the other member schools – except one another.

Round two between the rivals will be on Lundi Gras in Galliano.

“I’m exhausted,” Ellender girls’ basketball coach Kenneth Dixon said after the game went final. “South Lafourche came in here and they’re such a good basketball team. We made so many mistakes, and the moment was too big for our team at times in the game. But in the end, I guess we did enough. I’m happy that we won, but we have to get better, because we made far too many mistakes.”

The win was of the comeback variety for the Lady Patriots.

Ellender fell behind by seven in the first quarter and then by as many as 13 in the second quarter before trimming the lead to 32-24 at halftime.

In the second half, the difference was the Lady Patriots’ aggressiveness.

Ellender’s full-court pressure and drive-and-kick game got South Lafourche into foul trouble, which forced coach Rainie Terrebonne to ask for big things out of a bench that has little experience.

The Lady Patriots fouled three South Lafourche starters (Brinkley Callais, Breigh Cheramie and Victorianna Nelson) out of the game, which allowed Ellender to dominate the glass in the final two quarters to take the lead and control over the game.

In the final minutes, South Lafourche showed fight, tying the game with a minute to play.

But James’ basket proved to be the final blow, giving Ellender the edge in the teams’ first battle.

South Lafourche senior Caroline Guilbeau led all scorers with 26 points.