From left for dead at the halfway mark of district, to a second-place finish, it’s been a wild ride for the Loreauville boys basketball team.

For the second straight game, the Tigers rallied to tie the game against Catholic High, then used a fourth-quarter surge to pull away for a 39-25 win in a District 6-2A second-place tiebreaker held Wednesday at New Iberia Senior High.

With the win, Loreauville (16-12) gets the automatic bid to the Class 2A playoffs when the brackets are announced Friday.

“I have to give my boys credit,” said LHS coach Paul Reed, whose team finished the first half of district play with a 1-3 mark, tied with Delcambre and Jeanerette for last place. “They stay together and find a way to win. They find a way to just keep themselves in the ball game.”

When the two teams met for the second time on Feb. 7, Catholic High held a small lead heading into the second half and Loreauville blew the game open in the fourth quarter for the win.

Wednesday night, it was the same thing over again as CHS held a 17-15 lead at halftime before Loreauville tied the game at the end of the third quarter and pulled away in the fourth quarter for the win.

With two straight wins over Catholic High to finish the season, Loreauville went 4-1 over the second half of district to rally from the 1-3 start and get an automatic bid to the playoffs.

“It’s good for the team,” said Reed. “We hadn’t had this in Loreauville since I was playing there in 1984 and 1985. But I’m trying to get the kids to not be satisfied where they are.

“The one thing I’m trying to break is that Loreauville has never won a (basketball) playoff game in the history of the school. We’re trying to get the first playoff win in the history of the school. Not next year, but now.”

Kyle Francois had 12 points, Raymond Bonnette added 9 points and Nick Julien had 8 points for the Tigers. As of Wednesday afternoon LHS was unofficially ranked 28th in the LHSAA power rankings and will be on the road for a first-round playoff game.

For Catholic High, it was another disappointing effort. The Panthers have lost six of their last eight games after beating LHS 46-42 in the first round of district play on Jan. 20.

“They changed it up on us in the second half and went to a triangle-and-two and threw us off our rhythm,” said CHS (18-13) coach Ross Rix. “We took  couple of bad shots, a couple of 3s we didn’t need and it turned into buckets for them.

“Once they got up and got the momentum going, we had to start forcing the issue and things don’t turn out well for us when we start forcing.”

David Butler led Catholic High with nine points, Tim Granger scored 6 points and Evan Hebert and Nick Geoffroy each added 5 points.

With the loss, Catholic High becomes a bubble team as the Panthers are 29th in the latest unofficial LHSAA power rankings. If CHS gets into the playoffs when the pairings are announced Friday, the team will be on the road in the first round.

“It’s not how we want to be going into the playoffs,” said Rix. “I hope we get into the top 32, see who we get and go from there.”