Local teams primed for upcoming girls' basketball playoffs

CROWLEY – The 2013-14 prep girls’ basketball regular season has come to an end, but for six of the seven Acadia Parish teams, there are more games to be played.
Acadia Parish had one of its most successful girls’ basketball seasons in recent memory and that was evident when the LHSAA released its playoff brackets Monday afternoon.
Six of the parish’s seven girls’ teams earned playoff berths and all of them will be in action on Thursday with five of them playing at home.
The Notre Dame Lady Pios (24-4) headline the list of teams in postseason play and enter the Class 3A playoffs as the No. 5 seed. They will play host to No. 28 Evangel (14-15) Thursday evening at 6:30 p.m.
The game will be played at Crowley High School.
“I think the biggest thing is the fact that we’re going into the postseason, especially with the numbers we have, healthy,” said ND coach Nolan Theriot, who has just eight players on his roster. “But I feel like we are where we need to be and we are peaking at the right time.
“We have worked on a lot of different things during the course of the season to get to this point and we are very anxious to play on Thursday.”
The No. 5 seed for the Lady Pios is their third-highest seeding ever in the playoffs. They were the No. 5 seed last year and four years ago, they were seeded No. 3 when they made a run all the way to the Class 3A semifinals.
Theriot, however, knows his squad can’t overlook anyone, especially Evangel.
“When we made that run to the semifinals, Green Oaks came in here in the first round and gave us all we could handle,” said Theriot. “There’s no easy out or first-round gimme. Evangel is very good. They are guard oriented and they have kids that can play. There are some first-round matchups out there that teams are going to have some easy roads, but that’s definitely not the case for us.”
Also in Class 3A, the Iota Lady Dogs finished the season with a 21-9 mark and earned a share of the District 4-3A title with South Beauregard. The Lady Dogs will entertain No. 25 Church Point (13-11) at 6 p.m.
The Lady Dogs won nine of their last 10 regular season games, including a 71-62 victory over South Beauregard Saturday in a special district playoff game.
“We really got off to somewhat of a slow start due to volleyball and some injuries, but I knew once we got to district play, we’d be okay,” said Iota coach Meghann LeJeune. “I was really pleased with how my girls responded to moving up to 3A and we’ve played really well lately.”
South Beauregard upset the Lady Dogs two weeks ago a home and forced the Lady Dogs to beat St. Louis twice last week to set up the special playoff game Saturday.
“I don’t know if that loss to South Beauregard wasn’t a blessing in disguise,” said LeJeune. “It made us regain our focus and let us know that we are beatable.”
The Lady Dogs and Church Point have played once this season with Iota taking a slim 60-52 victory over the Lady Bears at the St. Louis tournament in December.
“We played them earlier in the year when we just got Taylor DeVille back from an injury and we really didn’t play well in that game,” said LeJeune. “But Church Point is really improved from years past when I’ve seen them play.
“They give a lot of different defensive looks and against them last time; we struggled on the offensive end. Hopefully, with the way we’ve been shooting the ball in the last three games, everything carries over because we’re going to see everything out of them defensively.”
In Class B action, the Midland Lady Rebels enter postseason play as the No. 11 seed after posting a record of 20-14. They will play host to No. 22 Choudrant at 6 p.m.
The No. 11 seed is the highest Midland has earned entering postseason play since 2009 when the Lady Rebels made it all the way to the quarterfinals as the No. 8 seed. The Lady Rebels made it to the second round a year ago as the No. 20 seed, but they lost in the opening round the previous three seasons.
“We’ve been playing pretty decent lately and it’s the playoffs, so anything can happen,” said MHS coach Joanna Tate. “We’re getting ready and the kids are excited. We’re working on what we need to work on and we know we have to come out and play our best basketball.”
Choudrant enters at 10-21 on the season, but Tate knows that records can be deceiving.
“They are going to be pretty decent and, of course, they are going to come in wanting to beat us,” said Tate. “As far as I can tell, they are smaller than us, but they are going to work hard and they will be scrappy.”
The Northside Christian Lady Warriors will represent Acadia Parish in the Class C playoffs as the No. 16 seed after finishing the regular season with a record of 9-17. They will play host to No. 17 Gibsland-Coleman at 6 p.m.
“I feel like we grow every time we get on the court and a lot of hard work went into this season,” said NCS coach Tracie Clement. “We might not have been as successful as I would have liked to have been, but I’m very proud of this group because they never give up.
Gibsland Coleman enters with a 5-25 record.
“They have played some close games against some teams that we have played so you never want to underestimate a team like that,” said Clement. “We are going to have to play one of our best games.”
Rayne rounds out the playoff group as the No. 9 seed in Class 4A. The District 5-3A champions will entertain No. 24 Franklin Parish Thursday at 6:30 p.m.