NISH senior Laila Sigure sails towards the rim in the Lady Jackets' road contest against Southside. 

YOUNGSVILLE – It’s not the way that NISH coach Chris Johnson would prefer to enter the playoffs but for the first time in a couple of seasons, the New Iberia Senior High Lady Jackets are headed to postseason hoops and have a chance to correct a disappointing trend the team has experienced over the past couple of weeks.

“The last six games we have fallen behind an average of 16, 17 points and tried to fight back to get into the game,” Johnson said. “It’s frustrating but it shows us that we can fight back.”

“If we can put it together in the first half then teams are going to be in trouble.”

Friday night, in the regular season finale against Southside, NISH again fell behind early, this time by 24 points in the first quarter, and fought back to within nine points in the final quarter but couldn’t get any closer, falling to the Lady Sharks 52-28 to finish the regular season with a 19-12 record.

When the playoff brackets are announced Monday, it is expected that NISH will be the 23rd seed in Division I Non-Select and on the road in the first round which must be played by Thursday.

“Road games are never easy and it looks like that we are going to have to take a two, three hour trip for the first game,” Johnson said. “But it’s our first playoff game in three years and we just want to be in it right now.”

Against Southside, NISH’s recent early-game offensive woes continued as the Lady Jackets scored two points against the Lady Sharks, who opened up a 16-2 lead at the end of the first quarter.

The struggles continued into the second quarter before New Iberia found the offensive rhythm and cut into the Southside lead and eventually got it down to the single-digits by the fourth quarter, but the Lady Sharks were able to hold and extend the margin back to double-digits but the end of the contest.

Zorian Davis led NISH with 14 points and Laila Sigure added 12 in the losing effort.

Even with the current streak of three losses in its last six games, the Lady Jackets 19 wins this season was a big improvement over the last two seasons.

“I’m very pleased with what we have accomplished,” Johnson said. “We had 10 wins one year and 11 wins the next year and now we’re 19-12 this year.”

“I feel that we are on the up and up and if we continue to put in the work, it’s going to continue to pay off.”

“Just because we are in the playoffs, we can’t come to practice and lollygag and feel that teams are going to roll over when the play us because they ain’t going to roll over for us.”