St. Louis uses defense to rout Leesville
Rodrick Anderson
SULPHUR — St. Louis Catholic used relentless defensive pressure to win its opener 73-23 over Leesville 73-23 Tuesday at the Sulphur High School Thanks-St. Louis (2-0) forced 11 turnovers in the first half and held the Wampus Cats to 1 of 14 shooting.
“Position-wise, our guys did a very good job of being in the right spots defensively,” St. Louis head coach Mack Guillory said. “We had a lot of ball pressure today and played with a lot of energy.
“We play a lot of man-to-man. We play some zone, but our base defense is man-to-man. Today was one of the days that I thought our kids got better. We still have some things we can get better at, but today was a great effort.”
On the other end of the court, the Saints shot better than 50 percent in the first half and led 44-7 at halftime while controlling the boards and hitting 6 of 7 from 3-point range. J.D. Soileau had four of the Saints’ 10 3-pointers.
Soileau, Bryson Hardy and Nic Ughovwa each scored 12 points.
“Offensively, our three bigs really rebounded today,” Guillory said. “I thought we did a very good job of getting the offensive boards and at the same time keeping people away from second shots.”
St. Louis opened the game with an 8-0 run led by a 3 and layup by Mika Ducote.
Ju’liun Culbert led Leesville (1-2) with six points.
LaGrange……………………………50
Sam Houston …………………….. 46
In the opening game, La-Grange built up double-digit lead in the first half but had to hold off the Broncos.
LaGrange led 26-17 at halftime, but the Broncos cut the Gators’ lead to 39-35 by the end of the third. Sam Houston’s Marshall Allen scored all eight of his points in the third quarter, and senior center Tremond Thompson led Sam Houston with 12 points.
LaGrange senior guard Chris Willis scored a game-high 20 points. Darien Trahan added 10 points and Kwasi Jack finished with 12.
Rodrick Anderson/American Press