Arianna Brown (22) of New Iberia shoots.

The good news for NISH Lady Jackets basketball is that they have already won more games this year — 12 — than they did last year — 10.

The bad news for Lady Jacket basketball is that the team is trending in the wrong direction as the regular season begins its stretch run.

Friday night, the Lady Jackets struggled to make their shots and the result was a 67-42 loss to District 3-5A rival Southside to drop the team to 12-7 on the season.

But the other problem with the loss that the Lady Jackets are sliding in the wrong direction when it comes to the Class 5A power rankings.

Almost two weeks ago, NISH was solidly in the postseason and fighting for a chance for a home first round playoff game.

But after three straight losses, NISH is now 35th in the power rankings, on the outside looking in with with five games left in the season.

Friday night’s loss to the Lady Sharks didn’t help.

NISH got behind early and several times cut a 20-point deficit to under 10 points but couldn’t quite come back all the way.

“That was a tough one but they are all tough,” NISH assistant coach Chris Johnson said after the Lady Jackets fell to 0-3 in district play. “We started off slow and had some turnovers early but we found spots where we did make plays to get ourselves back into the game. We were down 7 at one point and they went on a run and got it back to 18/19 points.

“We cut it down to 11 and they go up 21. We cut it down to 12 and they go up again by 20. They were just so far ahead we just kind of ran out of gas by the time we made our runs.”

Zorian Davis led the Lady Jackets with 9 points, Laila Sigue and Anan Brown each had eight points in the loss.

Hanna Mouton had 13 for the Lady Sharks (17-8, 3-0).

“We’re slipping down one, two, three spots every now and then,” Johnson said. “We still have five games to go so we have a chance for five wins.

“We have a chance to play basketball and get better each time out. We have no seniors and we are a young Yellow Jacket group so we can still come around and play.”