Lady Dogs fall short at South Beauregard

LONGVILLE – Road games in District 4-3A are always challenging…especially at South Beauregard.
Mental toughness is a must and in order to have a chance, visiting teams need to be at the top of their game.
Iota’s Lady Bulldogs were far from that Tuesday evening.
The Lady Dogs, who struggled with turnovers and free throw shooting, managed to keep it close in the first half, but a third-quarter drought enabled the Lady Knights push ahead and eventually pull away for a 66-50 victory that left the Bulldogs at the .500 mark on the season.
“We had to come in here and give ourselves our best opportunity and we just didn’t do that,” said Iota coach Meghann LeJeune, whose team fell to 11-11 overall and 2-2 in league play. “You could tell which team took it more seriously tonight and I honestly believe that.”
One of the Lady Dogs’ biggest problems was their inability to convert free throws. The Lady Dogs went just 11-for-27 from the line.
“It wasn’t the reason we lost the game, but free throw shooting could have helped us win this game,” said LeJeune. “We lost by 16 (points) and we missed 16 free throws, and that’s not counting the front end of 1-and-1’s that we missed.”
The Lady Dogs were able to keep it close in the first half and trailed just 28-26 despite eight missed free throws and 15 turnovers.
Whitney Landry and Madeline Gatte each buried 3-pointers in the first quarter and the two teams ended the frame in a 10-10 tie.
The Lady Knights led by as many as six in the second quarter before Gatte’s putback just before the half cut the lead to 28-26.
South Beauregard’s Sissy Saucier scored 11 of the Lady K’s 18 second quarter points.
“I didn’t even look at our turnovers, but I know our shooting percentage was terrible in the first half,” said LeJeune. “Fortunately, theirs wasn’t much better. It was kind of a good news, bad news-type deal at the half. The bad news was that we aren’t playing as good as we can, but the good news is, they aren’t either.”
That all changed in the third quarter.
The Lady K’s went on a 13-1 run in the first four minutes of the third quarter to pull away. In all, seven players scored for the hosts as they outscored the Lady Dogs 19-5 in the frame.
“The third quarter is where they made a gap and we just couldn’t close it,” said LeJeune. “Every other quarter we were right there with them.”
Landry drained a 3-pointer to start the fourth quarter and followed up with a shot in the lane to cut the lead to 11 (47-36) with seven minutes remaining.
The Lady K’s answered right back, however.
Katy Chisholm scored six points and sparked a 17-6 run before the Lady K’s sent in the reserves with two minutes remaining. The Lady Dogs closed out the game on an 8-2 run of their own.
“It was a well-officiated game, which is hard to get over here,” said LeJeune. “We had everything going in our favor; we just didn’t do the things that we needed to do.
Landry led the Lady Dogs with 15 points while Cambri St. Andre and Mallory Faul had seven and six points, respectively.
Gatte followed with five points, Becca Fantroy and Jillian Boone each scored four and Avery Wriborg, Taylor DeVille and Alexis St. Andre each scored three.