A late charge

Published 6:00 am Wednesday, January 24, 2018

FRANKLIN — After dropping their first two district contests, the Catholic High Lady Panthers were hanging around the bottom of the District 7-2A basketball standings with no place to look but up.

After that opening stretch, the Lady Panthers have strung together five wins in their last six district games, including a 46-32 win over co-district leader Franklin Tuesday evening, to pull within one game of the district leaders with six district games left to play. 

“We’ve been playing harder and with more intensity since the start of district play than we were at the start of the season,” CHS coach Dave Theriot said.

Madison Bienvenu had a game-high 24 points for CHS while Lauren Bonin added 14 in the win.

The Lady Panthers moved to 5-3 in district with the win, one game behind co-leaders Delcambre and Ascension Episcopal, who each have two losses. Franklin suffered its third district loss to drop into a tie for second place with CHS.

Delcambre beat Loreauville Tuesday night to stay in first place while AES beat West St. Mary 39-25.

The win over the Lady Hornets also avenged a 4-point loss to in December in the first round of district play.

“We’re playing with some aggression right now,” Theriot said. “We still make mental errors and we have trouble with our passes and we’re not seeing the floor to well.

“We still missed layups and foul shots tonight and that’s something that we can’t do.”

Theriot attributed Catholic High’s current run on five wins in its last six games to better play on the court on both ends.

“We’re getting the rebounds now and our foul shots are falling,” the CHS coach said. “In fact, our foul shooting probably carried us in three of those wins and in the past couple of games we’re had a little luck on our side.”

Franklin actually led 10-9 after the first quarter in Tuesday’s game but Catholic High came out in the second period and rallied to take a four point lead into the break.

After that, it was all CHS in the second half as the Lady Panthers outscored Franklin 24-13.

FHS coach Jacinta Verret said her team’s issues started with her players were getting into foul trouble.

“We were trying to be aggressive and we were a little too aggressive,” Verret said. Franklin snapped a three-game losing skid Friday with a win at Academy of the Sacred Heart-Grand Coteau but Tuesday’s loss makes four in the last five games. “Being in foul trouble for most of the night really hurt us.”

Sta’Trail Butler led Franklin (7-17 overall) with 17 points but no other FSH player had more than 5 points in the loss.

With six games left in the regular season, including another game against Delcambre in the regular season finale, the Lady Panthers still have a chance to compete for the district title. Theriot said it’s easy to keep his girls focused without peeking ahead to what could be.

“No. It’s not hard to stay focused because because in reality we never thought we’d be in this position,” he said. “But if it comes it comes and we’ll embrace it.”

Catholic High (7-13 overall) returns to the court Friday at home against Academy of the Sacred Heart, Franklin goes on the road to face rival West St. Mary.