Catholic High overcame a 10-point deficit to knock off Teurlings Catholic 44-37 in boys basketball action Friday night.

“I was a little nervous coming in,” CHS head coach Josh Guilbeau said. “It’s a big rivalry. It was our first game. We’ve had about a week of practice with the football guys coming back.”

At the 3:22 mark of the second quarter, Teurlings held a 19-9 advantage.

“You never know what’s going to happen until you get back on the court,” Guilbeau said. “In the first half, it looked like we had a bunch of football players out there, but we did really well defensively. We had a great effort.”

With his team trailing 21-14 at the half, junior KK Reno decided to change shoes. The move paid off with the Panthers (1-0) outscoring the Rebels 19-2 in the third quarter.

“I’m big-time superstitious,” Reno said. “I wasn’t playing as well in the first half, so I changed my shoes and felt like I played way better in the second half.”

Reno scored 10 points, while senior point guard Trace Williams had 11.

“I think I’m more of a hustler than a scorer,” Reno said. “I try to catch rebounds, run the plays and attack the goal. I try to keep the team pushing.”

Williams and Hiram Eugene, who finished with 7 points, scored all their points in the second half.

Six-foot-3 junior Russell Davis came off the bench to contribute 9, 7 of which came after the half.

“We weren’t nervous in the locker room at halftime,” Guilbeau said. “We stayed calm and knew what we were capable of doing. We hit a couple of shots in that third quarter and they only had two points.

“We did a great job defensively. They did miss some buckets, which helped us out for sure. We were able to hang on at the end.”

Guilbeau is relying on Reno and Williams to shoulder the offensive load with Javian Willis and Trey Amos having graduated.

“KK and Trace are the only two guys who have any real varsity experience,” Guilbeau said. “We’re going to lean on those guys heavily. Both are great leaders, good ballhandlers and good defenders. We’re going to need them to step up a little more offensively. That was not on their shoulders last year. We had some other offensive guys who did a great job for us.

“It’s really tough to replace guys like Javian and Trey. Both in the locker room and on the court. They’re great kids who have moved on and are playing college basketball and college football. Javian is at Centenary. Trey is at UL. I’m really excited for them, and I was happy to see them here tonight supporting their teammates and the program.”

Teurlings, which fell to 6-2, got 11 points from Matthew Marceaux.