ST. MARTINVILLE — The St. Martinville Tigers couldn’t protect the backboards, and consequently couldn’t protect an 8-point lead against Allen J. Ellender Memorial School in a Class 4A regional boys’ basketball playoff game Tuesday at a jam-packed SMSH gym.

The Tigers led by 8 points late in the third quarter and were up 36-30 heading into the fourth quarter before being outscored 24-7 in the final period. Many of those points came off turnovers, and several were the result of second, third and even fourth chances, including a few times after the Patriots rebounded their own missed free throws.

“They killed us on the rebounding edge,” SMSH coach Darrel Mitchell Sr. said. “They missed a bunch of free throws, we just couldn’t get the rebound. They ended up scoring off of it too.”

Ellender converted only four of 15 free throw attempts, all in the fourth quarter. St. Martinville went 3-for-6 at the line one game after converting 27 of 38 foul shots in their playoff opener. The first free throws for either team Tuesday didn’t come until SMSH got two from Andre Doucet with 2:04 left in the third quarter.

“Any time you trail on the road in the playoffs, it’s tough,” Ellender coach Cornell Scott said. “We were down like 7, but what we did was we just wanted to maintain, keep doing what we were doing. We got in some guys’ faces to disrupt some of their 3-point shots. We felt at halftime if we got to their legs, those shots wouldn’t fall as easily as they did in the first half. We just wanted to maintain our pressure and stay in front of someone.”

Scott said the ninth-seeded Patriots (26-7) needed to do three things to have a chance to win on the road against No. 8 seed St. Martinville (25-9). They did two of those well and survived their struggles at the free throw line.

“When you’re on the road, there’s a couple of things you want to make sure of,” he said. “You want to make sure you make your layups, make your layups, and play great defense. We did two of those three, and were just lucky enough that we did those other two so well that we were able to get back in the game.”

St. Martinville took its first lead at 5-2 on a 3-pointer by senior Bradley Savoy, and Ellender led only once after that through the first three quarters, at 6-5. But SMSH couldn’t put the game away, leading by just 6 points with 3:44 to go in the first half despite having held the Patriots scoreless for a stretch of 6 minutes, 33 seconds. Ellender pulled even twice later in the second quarter, going into the break even at 22 apiece.

Though SMSH outshot Ellender 4-2 from beyond the 3-point line, Mitchell said it wasn’t his gameplan to have his team bomb away from outside.

“I didn’t expect to shoot many 3’s, I really didn’t, because I know they try to play a little trap, and they couldn’t defend us,” he said. “They could not defend us. But we took some ill-advised shots at times. When we got them to play the man (defense), we did what we wanted.”

Savoy hit another 3-pointer early in the third quarter and the Tigers got 7 points from senior Andre Doucet in a three-minute stretch to push the lead to 36-28 with 1:08 left in the period.

Mitchell said St. Martinville’s failure to score on their next few trips down the court kept Ellender in the game when the Tigers could have put it away.

“We got up 8 or whatever at one time,” Mitchell said. “You’ve got to be able to put people away. But we miss an uncontested layup. Then we turn it over, and put them right back in the game. Seniors don’t make those mistakes. Not if you want to win, for sure. You cannot afford to do that.”

Ellender took its first lead since early in the first quarter at 41-40 on a layup by Curtis Anderson off a steal by Rontrell Hill. Neither team could open up a lead after that until the Patriots went up for good at 45-43 on a layup by Justen Harris with 2:05 to go, sparking an 11-0 run over the final couple of minutes. Ellender was only 3-for-10 from the free throw line over that stretch, but SMSH failed to score again, missing three 3-point shots in the final 1:05 and several layups, in addition to a number of turnovers.

Savoy and senior Drapper Anthony had 12 points each and Doucet had 11 to lead the Tigers.

Six-foot-seven junior Javante Walker, who had given SMSH its only inside presence and a defensive threat that turned away several Ellender scoring opportunities, drew his fourth foul and left the game with 2:59 to go, then re-entered with 1:28 left before fouling out at the 1:16 mark. His absence opened up the inside even more for the Patriots, who had an overall size advantage with a few of players in the 6-5 to 6-6 range.

“We just kept trying to attack him and go at him and get him out of position,” Scott said. “It kind of helped because then he swinging, he started getting tired. It just helped when he was out of the game because once he went out of the game we were able to control the boards.”

SMSH still led 41-40 with 4:17 to go but Walker missed the front end of a one-and-one that could have extended the lead. The Tigers claimed a 43-42 lead with 3:04 remaining on a layup by Anthony, their final points of the night.

“I thought when we were up by 1, if he could make the two free throws, I thought we had them at that point,” Mitchell said. “And then we made crucial mistakes and turnovers and ill-advised shots. That’s seniors now. If you don’t do that, you can’t win. You can’t make those mistakes.”

Six-foot-six senor Leland Alexander had 13 points points for the Patriots, including a couple of putback jams. Harris added 11 points, Hill and Anderson had 9 each and Kobe Hartman added 8, including a breakaway slam dunk.

Ellender travels to face No. 1 seed Salmen (23-4) in the quarterfinals. Salmen beat Neville 55-51 in double overtime Tuesday.