Lady Warriors remain tied for second place in district

Lady Warriors remain tied for second place in district
The Oakdale Lady Warriors entered Friday night's game at Rapides with a chance to tie the Lady Mustangs for the district lead, but came away with the 56-38 loss. Even with the loss the Lady Warriors remain tied for second place in district helped out by a Rosepine loss at Pickering and a Many loss at Menard.
Head coach Ted Fontenot admitted their may have been a fatigue factor that led to the loss at Rapides as the game was the third in four nights for his team. The team hosted University Academy of Cenla on the Tuesday and a night later played at Bunkie in a make up game from the week before.
"We started off cold in the first quarter," Fontenot said. "We missed some free throws and some easy shots in the paint, and in the second quarter I think we responded and made it a 4 point game at halftime. And then in the third quarter we got tired and started making some mental mistakes that hurt us and just took us out the game."
Rapides was dominating in the first quarter on both sides of the ball to lead 12-6 and was disrupting the timing of Oakdale offensively.  Half of Oakdale's points in the first quarter came on one basket from beyond the arc out of the hand of Setorie St. Andre. She scored another three pointer, and the rest of her team added 10 points to make it a 23-19 game at halftime. But a cold shooting performance in the third quarter allowed carnage to set in that continued into the fourth quarter. Highlighting the second half was Sanaa St. Andre who made three baskets from three-point range.
  "We're still in it," Fontenot acknowledged. "We're not disappointed. We were just hoping for a better outcome especially in the second half tonight, but we'll get another shot at them when they come to our place."
The week began with a 44-35 win against University Academy. "We knew they were gonna be a very quality team," Fontenot said. "They had 15 wins, so we knew we had to bring our A game. And I think our girls came out with some good intensity to start with, and we played a good four quarter game. It got tight on us which is good because we need that adversity for the playoffs because in the playoffs it's gonna be tight throughout."
The first eight minutes ended with Oakdale leading 15-6, and the game came down to how well Oakdale shot from the free throw line as they went cold shooting from the field. The Lady Warriors combined to shoot 13 for 18 from the free throw line. Leading the way was Ke'Maesha St. Andre who went eight for 12 from the line with all but two points coming in the second half. Treshunda Joseph added a pair of free throws in the fourth quarter, and Sanaa St. Andre scored three points from the charity stripe.
"I was proud of our team for showing some good adversity and not giving up and fighting through a tough game to win that one," said Fontenot. "It was a very good win for us."
A night later the Lady Warriors played a Bunkie team that Fontenot described as "not the strongest team in the district."  He went on to say, "They have four seniors, and (Quantisha Seaberry) is definitely the girl to stop. We need to contain her and make sure she does't get hot on us. She is their top scorer and leading player. but if we play well I think we should be OK."
His team was more than OK as it dominated for the easy 64-18 win. The Lady Warrior defense held Seaberry to only seven points and completely shut her down in the second half. On the other side of the ball, the Lady Warrior offense came out the gate hot scoring 20 points in the first quarter. Setorie St. Andre came up big with a three pointer from wing as a timeout out was called on the court with 3:06 remaining in the opening frame.
Good ball movement on the part of Oakdale in the second quarter lead to two points on the score board to start a 8-0 run as Bunkie called a timeout on the court trailing 30-13. The first half ended with Oakdale up 33-13. The hot shooting continued as six different Lady Warriors provided points in the second half to finish off the Panthers.