ESA fights off bad shooting night for QF win

Published 6:30 am Sunday, March 4, 2018

CADE — In the first five minutes of Friday’s Division V quarterfinal between ESA and Family Christian, the Falcons had two baskets … and five misses.

It foreshadowed the kind of night it would be for the No. 4 seed Falcons. ESA missed way more shots than it made but Tucker Arkin hit a big 3-point basket with less than a minute to play and Danny Aluwhalia and Keith Simien each hit a free throw with under 20 seconds left as ESA survived a second-half rally from the Flames to beat No. 5 seed Family Christian 50-47 and advance to the LHSAA Marsh Madness State Basketball Tournament for the second consecutive year.

“We hit one big one when we needed it but that’s kind of what we’ve been doing all year, just winning ugly games,” ESA coach Jason Fatheree said. “No matter how it goes, some nights we’re on, some nights we’re off but one thing is for sure, we’re going to battle on defense and that kept us in the game.

“It got us out to a lead early, but it was our defense that kept us in the game all night.”

The Falcons shot 16 of 40 from the floor (40 percent) and 11 of 23 from the free throw line (47.8 percent).

The saving grace for the Falcons was that they hit seven of 11 from the 3-point line and outrebounded a taller, more athletic Family Christian squad 23-12.

“We just battled,” said Fatheree. “We didn’t give up.”

Those were words echoed by senior Mark Dibbs, who with Arkin each had 13 points in the game to lead the Falcons.

“We just fought so hard the entire game,” said Dibbs. “The first time we played them we lost by quite a large margin (76-39 in Baton Rouge on Nov. 11) but Coach Jason prepared us so well and we got to know the personnel so well and it paid off.

“We knew that this could be our last game and we didn’t want the thousands of hours we’ve invested into basketball for the past five years go to waste.”

Despite the poor shooting, ESA (21-18) jumped out to an early lead over the Flames and led 17-10 at the end of the first quarter and 31-23 at halftime. At two different times in the first half, ESA led by as many as 11 points, seemingly frustrating the Flames (19-23) both on the offensive end and the defensive end, forcing FCA into 18 turnovers for the game.

“We didn’t guard very well,” FCA coach Steven Rachal said. “Hats off to them. They played great. They made us pay for the man-to-man defense. We didn’t guard, that’s my fault.”

While FCA trailed at the break, they forced their way back into the game in the third quarter, holding ESA to only 8 points in the period and cutting the ESA lead to 39-36 by the end of the period.

The Flames continued their run in the fourth quarter and managed to grab a 2-point lead twice, the last lead for the visitors coming with less than a minute remaining.

“We were supposed to press them in the first half but we didn’t,” Rachel said. “Lord knows what we were doing then. I wasn’t very confident in it but we went to zone press in the second half and we actually did a better job of zone pressing that man pressing.

“We had a 1-point lead and were supposed to be holding the ball and shooting free throws. It just didn’t work out that way.”

Even with the shooting struggles and and the fact that Family Christian took the lead, ESA never panicked.

“We really didn’t get frustrated at all,” Dibbs said. “We knew that if we kept shooting they would eventually fall.

“We did get into a cold stretch there in the third quarter but late in the fourth Tucker hit this really big shot. Coach Jason tells us to keep shooting and we followed his advice. I think we had our confidence coming into this game and it paid off. We had the lead and even though we gave up the lead, we’re fighters. We’re tough. We knew this was a winnable game. If we keep playing hard, we knew we could win this game.”

Now the Falcons head back to the state tournament at Burton Coliseum in Lake Charles and get No. 1 seed Jehovah-Jireh (27-13) in the semifinals Monday at 1:15 p.m.

“I hear they’re pretty decent,” Fatheree said jokingly after the game before getting serious about the semifinal game. “We have our work cut out for us. We’ve got to get back to the drawing board, we’re going to get after it and we’ll give them our best shot.”