ST. MARTINVILLE — Although his Tigers dropped a 68-58 decision to North Central on Saturday, St. Martinville Senior High head coach Ihmaru Jones was able to find some silver linings.

Perhaps most importantly, with District 6-3A play starting next week, senior forward Datavious Gabriel has quickly found his groove after a two-week quarantine.

Gabriel, who scored 5 points in Tuesday’s loss to Cecilia in his first game back, dropped 23 vs. North Central, which is considered to be one of the best teams in any classification in the state.

Moreover, Gabriel posted those numbers while being guarded by North Central senior Derrick Tezeno, who is ranked the No. 1 player in Louisiana.

“He held his own,” Jones said of Gabriel. “I wish he would have done a little more damage on offense against (Tezeno), but we’re still working on that.”

North Central, which has won two straight Class A state titles, raced to an early 9-2 lead but the Tigers rallied to go ahead 11-10 on a basket by Gabriel with 3:30 remaining in the first quarter.

In the third, the Hurricanes (12-3) extended the margin to 50-31 but couldn’t dispose of the Tigers, who cut the deficit to 63-54 on a 3-point play by Jalen Mitchell with two minutes left in the fourth.

St. Martinville (12-9) had two opportunities to come within 6 points after the Hurricanes missed front-end free throws but couldn’t convert.

Sophomore De’Vion Lavergne canned 23 points for North Central, followed by Tezeno (19) and Reginald Stoner, Jr. with 17.

“They have some people who know how to score on that team,” Jones said. “We kind of defended like we defend each other in practice. But in practice, there’s not really anybody to go against who is going to play like that.

“So we got kind of lazy on closing out, and they started knocking down shots. We missed a lot of lay-ups and we missed some wide-open shots. Some wide-open 3’s. If we make some of those, we’re in there because we only lost by 10. But we have to make shots.”

Mitchell scored 11 points for the Tigers. Davantre Alexander came off the bench to add eight

points, and Andrew Savoy also had eight points.

The Tigers aren’t scheduled to play again until next Friday vs. Kaplan.

“Our district opener against Abbeville has been postponed,” Jones said. “We don’t play until Friday at Kaplan. I was trying to find somebody to fill a spot on Tuesday but wasn’t successful.

“I think we’re playing well. This is a crazy season with teams postponing and cancellations. I don’t know if we’ll even play the whole 10-game district schedule the way it’s going. We’re already missing Abbeville, and I don’t think we’re going to make that game up.”