For Louisville to repeat as MHSAAA Class 4A girls basketball state champions, Fred Morris needed his team to bring more intensity and consistency after back-to-back losses to good teams a couple of weeks ago.
Following defeats to New Site and Choctaw Central, the coach felt good about his group’s performances but said that they had to take the next step. They’ve done that with four-straight wins.
Last week was particularly dominant for the Lady Wildcats as they whipped Kosciusko twice and scored a monster blowout against West Lauderdale.
“From a defensive stand point, the last three games we defended as well as we defended all season,” Morris said. “Offensively, we still have a ways to go. I think we’re executing better in the halfcourt. But Friday and Saturday night we played as well as we did all season.”
LHS played games against the Lady Whippets of Kosciusko on Tuesday and Saturday of last week scoring a 59-44 win in the first game and 52-22 on Saturday. Areyanna Hunter was the star again on Saturday scoring a game-high 20 points, pulling down six rebounds and dishing out five assists.
Dyshunte Bragg had 12 points and eight rebounds and Amauri Pruitt finished with 10 points and eight rebounds.
Sandwiched between those two ball games was a home game against West Lauderdale in which the Lady Wildcats made a statement. Earlier in the year, it was the offense that was so impressive as they beat WLHS 87-30, but this time they made every possession difficult on defense with a 62-8 win.
“We got out and pressed and in the second half we had a running clock,” Morris said. “We didn’t allow them to get any offense and we scored a lot off of our defense.”
The first half was beyond lopsided as the Lady Wildcats came out hot on both ends and led 50-6. With the running clock, neither team did much of anything in the second half. WLHS had just two points.
Pruitt was the leader in the game for LHS with 11 points and Jalen Ingram scored 10 as 10 different players got in the scoring column despite a shortened ball game.
The Lady Wildcats (16-6, 6-2 Class 4A, Region 4) are a win away from locking up the No. 2 spot in the district tournament and they’ll have two games to do it. It starts with Senior Night on Tuesday night when they take on Leake Central.
After that, LHS will travel to Choctaw Central on Friday for the final game of the regular season. The Lady Warriors will be the No. 1 seed in the district tournament at Northeast Lauderdale next week as they’re currently undefeated in district play. The Lady Wildcats lost a heartbreaking three-point game against Choctaw Central just two weeks ago.
“When you go down there, you’re going to have to bring your ‘A’ game. It’s going to be a full house so you can’t get distracted and attention to detail is big,” Morris said. “You just hope that they don’t start hitting from the outside. We’ve got to limit their runs and keep fighting. It’s a tough place to play and I’m used to it. You really have to focus and lock in on the little things.”
BOYS
The Wildcats had a big opportunity ahead of them getting a chance to play division leaders Kosciusko twice, but they came up just short. LHS lost the first game at Kosciusko 68-63 in overtime and they lost 67-53 at home against the Whippets later in the week.
In between those losses they did get a blowout win over West Lauderdale with the 63-41 win.
LHS is now 13-6 on the year and 5-3 in Region 4. Like the Lady Wildcats, the boys have a chance to clinch that No. 2 district seed ahead of the tournament. They’re also playing Leake Central and Choctaw Central this week and the Wildcats lost an overtime game to the Gators back in January by three points.
