Westgate’s Trevontae Williams (4) pulls down a rebound in front of teammate Kaleb Ratliff (32) during a home game against Terrebonne on Tuesday. - Lee Ball / The Daily Iberian

It took Westgate some time to focus on the task at hand in its District 7-5A basketball opener against Terrebonne Tuesday night at the Westgate Coliseum.

But after Westgate gave up a double-digit lead to THS, Eddie Sims scored 7 straight points to give WHS a 3-point lead with 3½ minutes remaining, and Jamel White and Kaleb Ratliff put the game out of reach with a combined 9-2 run over a minute-and-a-half stretch to propel Westgate to an 86-76 win.

“We just came out flat,” said WHS coach Oliver Winston. “Luckily for us we got momentum and closed it out, but we didn’t improve tonight, so that’s something we’re going to have to work on.”

Westgate improved to 9-1 on the season, 1-0 in district. Terrebonne fell to 7-7 and 0-1.

“I’m proud of the effort,” said Terrebonne coach Derek Szush. “We played hard. We made a couple of little mistakes at the end.”

Terrebonne got off to a hot start, staying close to WHS for most of the first period and taking a 25-24 lead into the second behind Deshaun Diggs’ 7 points and 9-for-10 free throw shooting in the period.

Westgate rallied to go ahead 44-36 by halftime, leading by 9 at one point on a Ratliff dunk with 40 seconds to go following a steal by White. Ratliff scored 17 of his game-best 29 points in the first half.

The lead reached double digits in the opening seconds of the third quarter on a jumper by Sims, who hit a 3-pointer with 6:59 to go to push the lead to 12 points at 49-37. Westgate’s lead was still in double digits with 5:05 remaining in the third on a putback by Ratliff, but Terrebonne went on an 11-2 tear over the next three minutes to pull to within 56-54 by the 2:01 mark. WHS led 60-57 heading into the fourth quarter.

“Terrebonne did a good job offensively,” said Winston. “We were up by 12, and I think the next four, maybe five possessions we came down, four of them we turned it over, and they went down and hit shots. A 12-point lead, all of a sudden now you’re up by like 2 or 4, and now they’re scrambling, thinking they can stay in the game, and they did. We put ourselves in a bad situation just by our lack of focus.”

Winston said the Tigers made an adjustment defensively in the third quarter to prevent Terrebonne from getting to the middle as easily as they had earlier in the game.

A basket by Ezell Garner with 5:04 to go in the game cut Westgate’s lead to a single point, 64-63. After White hit two free throws with 4:58 remaining to make it 66-63, Devante Ross answered with two free throws for THS to make it 66-65 with 4:31 remaining.

Terrebonne finally went ahead 67-66 on a drive to the goal by Ross with 4:05 remaining, and Erin Harris hit two free throws with 3:32 left to give Terrebonne its biggest lead at 69-66.

Szush said Terrebonne’s experience in close games helped his team when they fell behind.

“We’ve been in a lot of games like this, all year,” said Szush. “We were down 16 in the third quarter to Ellender a couple of days ago, we ended up winning that game by 1. We’ve lost some close games. We’ve been in those situations all year, so it wasn’t new to us. We never really panicked.”

Then Sims, who finished with 28 points, got hot. A 3-pointer, one of four on the night, from the left corner with 3:21 to go to tie the score. 

A steal resulting in two free throws with 3:09 remaining. A drive to the lane for a pull-up jumper with 2:50, and a quick 4-point lead.

“When they started getting their momentum going, little No. 3 (Sims) went on a 7-0 run by himself, we couldn’t find him, that didn’t help, and the crowd got into it,” said Szush. “This is one of the loudest places we’ve ever played in, and we’ve played in some tough places. This place gets loud.”

A basket by William Moses with 2:35 remaining temporarily stemmed the tide, but Sims answered with a jumper at the 2:17 mark to push the lead to 75-71, and then it was White and Ratliff taking turns scoring to put the game away. White scored 5 of his 17 points in the final 2:02, including a 3-for-4 showing at the free throw line. He also drove to the goal twice and lobbed to Ratliff for crowd-pleasing dunks over a 35-second span , the second one making it an 82-73 game with under 50 seconds to play. Ratliff also was in double figures in rebounds and blocked eight shots on the night.

“Eddie and Rat did a good job stabilizing the ship after we put ourselves in a bad situation and got behind,” said Winston. “Eddie kind of took over, made probably two or three baskets. That’s a good job. And I thought defensively we stepped it up a little bit the last 2½ minutes of the game. We were able to step it up, got some steals, got them out of their spots, and stopped giving up rebounds. The first half we had like three defensive rebounds, so we did a horrible job on the boards.”

Diggs finished with 25 points, including three 3-pointers, while Ross and Moses had 14 each for Terrebonne.

“We knew it was going to be a tough game because that’s how Terrebonne plays us,” said Winston. “And 3 (Diggs) is a player, and 5 (Ross) can shoot the ball.”

Winston said Westgate is still dealing with the loss of point guard Jamel White’s mother — her funeral is set for today after she died Dec. 10 following a battle with cancer — and of former teammate Fred Joseph, who was killed during the summer, but said there are no excuses for the team’s lack of focus Tuesday.

“No excuses,” he said. “We have to stay focused for four quarters, and we just didn’t do that for 3 ½ quarters, basically. 

“We have spurts. The first half I think we went up 10 points (actually 9), and then as soon as we did, boom, we let the lead collapse. And that’s a lack of focus because we think we’re going to close the game out, instead of playing to close the game out.”

The Tigers definitely showed a week’s worth of rust after not playing since the previous Tuesday, he said, though the team needed the rest.

“At the same time we came out kind of rusty,” he said. “We gave up 25 points in the first quarter. In the first quarter — we haven’t done that all season long. We made it into an offensive (shootout) where the person who has the ball last wins. That’s not how we’re going to be successful. We’ve got to play better defense.”

Westgate plays in Barbe’s tournament this weekend and in the St. Martinville tournament the following week against such competition as Leesville (12-0 heading into Tuesday action), Peabody (10-0), Comeaux (9-2) and O. Perry Walker (6-2).

Terrebonne 56, Westgate 50

The Lady Tigers rallied late to within a couple of points but THS held on for the district-opening win in the girls’ game.

Terrebonne jumped out to a 35-21 halftime  lead and extended it to 46-30 after three quarters. But WHS outscored the visitors 18-8 in the fourth quarter to pull close. Terrebonne hit 11 of 14 free throws for the game, while Westgate went 8-for-15.

Diamonique Curvin hit four 3-pointers and finished with a team-high 16 points for Westgate. Kadisha Mitchell added 11 points and Alexis Charles had 10.

Waneka Robinson had 18 points for Terrebonne, including two 3-pointers. Darian Dees added 11 points and was 5-for-6 at the foul line.