Iowa’s road warriors will be contending with a desperate foe tonight when the head north to take on the South Beauregard Golden Knights.

South Beauregard has lost two straight games to fall from first to third in the District 4-3A standings. Iowa sits atop the standings, in large part due to winning two of three road district games.

The Golden Knights have suffered close losses at Westlake and at Crowley in its past two games and needs a win to stay in the title hunt.

Head coach Marcus Simon said the teams quintet of seniors — Aaron Guillory, Brian Marks, Shawn Duhon, DaQuain Mathews and Jordan Malbreaux — are the keys to the team.

“Senior leadership and a commitment to play tough defense is why we have been successful,” Simon said. “We have given opponents a hard time and made it difficult for them to score, especially late, buy switching defenses. Offensively, we are sharing ball, being unselfish, no one is worried about their numbers. Our seniors are hungry for success. Some of them have gotten a taste of it in football, but they have not had much in basketball.”

Simon said bringing home a win won’t be easy.

“In this district, it is difficult to get a road win. South Beauregard has not lost a home game in district. Everyone is kind of even and every environment is hostile so you have to be ready to play.”

The Golden Knights have protected their house so far in district play, picking up narrow wins over Westlake and Crowley and a blowout over Notre Dame. South Beauregard is just 1-3 in road district games. Second-place Westlake has suffered both of its losses on the road.

Iowa went 8-1 in January and beat South Beauregard 72-62 on Jan. 15.

“It was tight pretty much the whole game, we had a tough time stopping their guards (Micah McElhaney and Grant Thibodeaux) from getting into the paint. After we started doing that, we were able to take the lead and never gave it back.”

(MGNonline)