With the game mired in a back-and-forth battle, the Barbe Lady Bucs switched to defensive mode in the second quarter and held on for a 33-23 win over Sulphur in a District 3-5A game on Tuesday.
Sulphur (15-5, 1-2) led 9-8 with 1:13 left in the first quarter, but Barbe started employing a full-court press to stymie Sulphur’s offense which went scoreless for an 8-minute span from the first and second quarters and a 4-minute drought to start the third quarter.
Barbe held Sulphur’s top scorers, Claralee Richard (2) and Dani Donovan (3), to a combined five points.
“We just finally woke up and took a little pride in our defense,” Barbe head coach Kelly Durio said. “It is defense that gets us going even though we have weapons offensively.
“If we are not alive defensively, we don’t gel offensively. It is something we have to get more consistent at.”
Brandi Williams scored all 10 of her points in the first half to lead Barbe (18-3, 2-0) to a 18-12 halftime lead. Williams hit a 3-point basket with 2 seconds left in the first quarter and another early in the second for a 15-9 lead.
Sulphur went head to head with the defending district champions early taking a 2-0 lead on a shot by Alyssa Navarre and a 9-8 lead on a 3 by Kaitlyn Darby with 1:13 left in the first quarter.
Sulphur’s game plan of shutting down Barbe’s twin towers in the front court worked. Sulphur held Koko Daniels scoreless and Devine Tanks to eight points and Barbe was limited to four offensive rebounds. The Tors also held the No. 1 team in Class 5A to well below its 56.5 points per game average, but Sulphur struggled to score in the paint missing 12 shots.
“We had a couple breakdowns and lost some people, but I thought the game plan was working,” Lefevre said. “We just didn’t have a good shooting night.
“Claralee usually hits those shots in the lane and if she had the game could have been different. We held them to 33 points and I thought our kids played hard and matched their intensity. We kept them off the boards and Koko didn’t score. I wish we could have made a few of those shots in the lane.”
Sulphur broke out of its slump with an 8-2 run late in the game. Down 23-12 after Bailey Wilson (10 points) banked a jumper with 4:51 left in the third quarter, Dani Donovan hit a pair of free throws and Richard hit a shot in the lane. Navarre scored Sulphur’s next four points to cut Barbe’s lead to 25-20 with 7:05 left in the game, but that was as close as they got. Navarre led Sulphur with eight points.
“We still cut it down to five at one point in the fourth quarter, but I wish our shots would have been falling,” Lefevre said. “We got the ball where we wanted — in Claralee’s hands — and tonight they were not going in.
“We still have a lot of games and it is all about getting into the top-16 so that is what we are going to keep fighting for.”
“It is a long-district race,” Durio said. “We are just two games in so it is still anyone’s race.
“It is like I told the girls, everyone is gunning for them and they have to come out every game with their best effort from tip to buzzer. Hats off to Sulphur, but we have to play them again at their place so we are going to have to bring a much better effort.”
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