SULPHUR — Sulphur’s frontline of Kristina Metoyer and Lauren Pace aren’t quite tall enough to be twin towers, but they were good enough to dominate the paint in the Lady Tors 57-35 bi-district round win over Terrebonne.

The Tors will travel to face No. 22 seed Zachary in the regional round Thursday. Zachary beat No. 11 Walker on the road in the bi-district round.

Sulphur (26-3) took control of the game early with a 14-5 run and never trailed after tying the game at 3 on their first possession. Metoyer and Pace combined to scored 11 points in the first quarter and seven more in the second as the Tors took a 12-point lead into the break.

Tors head coach Helen Lefevre said the duo’s work on the defensive end against Terrebonne (17-13) forwards Darian Dees and Kendra Davis was crucial to the win. The Tigers’ duo was held to 8 combined points in the game.

“In our district we did not face anybody that had a dominant post player, so we worked on that,” she said. “We were outrebounding them at halftime and did a good job. From what I learned about them, (Dees) has been a dominant player inside. I knew a couple of them could hit threes, but they came out hitting and that stretched our defense out, but we did a good job inside.”

Metoyer finished with 13 points and 14 rebounds while Pace has 14 points, 12 rebounds, 4 assists and 5 steals.

“They are not intimidated by anybody, they get in there and they don’t mind banging around,” Lefevre said. “They do a good job of blocking people out and getting a body on people. We can’t outjump anybody, but they do a good job of getting in position.”

Ally Cupit scored 14 and Hannah Cupit added 11 for the Tors. Ally scored 10 in the first half as Hannah played the role of distributor.

“I have been coaching for 29 years and have never had a player as unselfish as Hannah Cupit,” Lefevre said.

“She makes her teammates around her better because she is going to make that extra pass to get somebody an open shot. For Hannah, it is not about how many points she scores, it is about whether we win or lose. You can’t replace that.”

Waneka Robinson led Terrebonne with 12 points, including a trio of first half 3-pointers to keep the Tigers close. The Tigers turned the ball over 14 times in the first half and were held to single digit points in each of the final three quarters.

“Sulphur was playing tenacious defense, we could not get the shots we wanted, and the ones we did get, we didn’t hit,” said Terrebonne head coach Greg Knox. “We’re better than 35 points, but Sulphur had a lot to do with that.”

(Rick Hickman / American Press)