Senior forward Wayne Randall-Bashay, right, celebrates NISH's win over LCA with Knight's senior Kameron Williams, a Tulane commit. 

LAFAYETTE – Finally, NISH held a fourth quarter lead — and won.

In three of the Jackets four losses this season, New Iberia Senior High held at least a five-point lead late in the fourth quarter against a quality opponent and failed to secure the win.

Against a 20-win Lafayette Christian Academy team with senior big man Kameron Williams, who is headed to Tulane, NISH again held a five-point lead over the Knights with less than three minutes to play in the fourth quarter.

Only this time, the Jackets were able to hold off a rally from the Knights and come away with the 46-36 win to improve to 21-4 overall as the Jackets took a break from District 3-5A battles to go on the road to face the Class 4A Knights, who are expected to contend for the Select Division II state title this season.

“We’ve struggled with that from the beginning of the year so to be able to come out tonight and get the win shows how far we have come,” NISH senior guard Austin Delahoussaye, who finished with 12 points, said after the win.

It was an important win because against Liberty, Northwest and just last week against Lafayette High, NISH held leads of at least five points late in the game and lost.

Now the Jackets have that key win where they were able to hold the late lead.

“I’m glad we did too,” NISH coach Chad Pourciau said. “We did a great job guarding, we made some timely shots. If we could only have made free throws.”

“We made them down the stretch but if we would have made them throughout the game, it would have been a lot more comfortable for us.”

NISH made five of its last six free throws in the final minute to seal the win but the Jackets missed 12 other free throws during the game including a number of misses in the fourth quarter when Lafayette Christian was attempting a comeback from down five points at the start of the final period.

“This was a huge win for us,” the NISH coach said. “We lost a tough one against Lafayette High that kind of spoiled our chances of winning a district title.”

“I’m not saying we can’t win district but we need help now to win it. When you lose one like that and you have to play a 20 win team on the road, you have to find a way to bounce back. We beat Barbe at home but to go on the road and beat a quality team like LCA was huge for us.”

It was also a battle of the big men as NISH’s Wayne Randal Bashay, who is headed to Xavier New Orleans went up against LCA’s Kameron Williams, who is headed to Tulane.

Williams won the individual battle with 18 points in the game to Bashay’s 10 points for the Jackets, but it was more than that according to Pourciau.

“We knew that they were going to force the ball inside to him and the the shooters would play off of him,” Pourciau said. “Kam is a great player and I don’t know what he finished with tonight but Wayne was able to guard him and not really let him get going.”

The two playoff-bound teams battled from the top as the Knights took the early lead but NISH rallied to take the 13-7 first quarter lead.

LCA tied the game at 13-13 in the second quarter but NISH was able to eke out a 19-13 halftime lead over the Knights and hold at least a three point lead over LCA throughout the second half before pulling away late for the 10 point win.

It was the third game in a rough two week stretch for the Jackets as NISH dropped a game to Lafayette High last week that was played Thursday after being delayed twice from the scheduled Tuesday contest due to weather.

The Jackets then came back Friday to beat Barbe at home before going on the road this week with the LCA game Tuesday, a game at Sulphur Friday and then the second game of the cross-town rivalry at Westgate Saturday.

“We have a tough back-to-back coming up with a two hour trip to Sulphur Friday and then our cross-town rival Saturday,” Pourciau said. “But this win tonight really gives us a boost.”