Lafayette Christian rips Central Catholic 88-18

Following No. 9 Central Catholic’s 88-18 blowout loss in the Division IV quarterfinals to defending state champion and top seed Lafayette Christian Academy Thursday, Central Catholic High School
coach Ree Case stood for a few moments outside the visitor’s locker room while his team already was inside.
While Lafayette Christian celebrated another trip to the semifinals, Case stood along the baseline, raised his cellphone and snapped a picture of the final score before shortly after entering his team’s locker room.
It may have been the final time he saw the score on the actual scoreboard, but it won’t be the final time his team is reminded of the end result.
“They will see it every workout, every practice,” Case said. “That picture will be up in the locker room. They will see that score a lot between now and next year. Like I told them, the great thing is we have no seniors, but I told them if we’re a year older and not a year better, then we’ll lose this game again next year.”
Central Catholic finishes its season with a 16-15 mark, while Lafayette Christian improves to 24-5. The Knights will face No. 4 Southern Lab in the Division IV semifinals next week. The Kittens advanced after knockin g o f f C e n t r a l C a t h o l i c ’s a n d Lafayette Christian’s district foe, No. 5 Vermilion Catholic, 49- 35, Thursday.
Thursday, Central Catholic fell behind fairly early and could never recover as the Knights rolled to the dominating victory.
W h i l e C e n t r a l Catholic came in with a game plan to make Thursday’s contest a half-court game while running clock and driving to the basket to draw fouls, turnovers that led to Lafayette Christian points soon ended that game plan.
Central Catholic began the game with a 2-0 lead after Brooks Thomas, who was fouled on a drive to the basket, sank two free throws with 7:16 remaining.
However, Lafayette C h r i s t i a n ’s Greg Williams tied the score on the other end at 2-all just seconds later.
Soon after, the Knights sped up the game and took control, ending the first quarter on a 21-4 run for a 23-6 lead after a period of play.
“We executed, and then we quit doing it,” Case said. “We got impatient. We took some bad shots, some poor shots that led to runouts, and then they got a lead.”
At that point, everything Case had prepared his team to do for two weeks had to be thrown out the window “and play the one way we couldn’t play to try to beat them,” which was to run up and down
the floor with Lafayette Christian.
“We couldn’t beat them playing their game, and it showed tonight,” he said.
In the second quarter, Central Catholic had just one field goal, a basket by Davidyione Bias to cut Central Catholic’s deficit to 27-8.
The Eagles’ three other points in the quarter came from the free-throw line.
Lafayette Christian closed the quarter with a buzzer- b e a t i n g three-pointer by Victor Dupre for a 43-11 halftime lead.
Things got worse in the third quarter as Central Catholic was outscored 28-2.
The Eagles’ lone basket came on a layup by Ross Thomas with 1:16 remaining in the quarter to make the score 6 8 - 1 3 L a f a y e t t e Christian.
The lead got as large as 71 points at 86-15 after Errol Rogers’ three-pointer with 4:34 remaining.
“Whether we lost by two or by 70, I was disappointed we lost,” Case said. “We got behind. We just didn’t play the way we were capable of playing. Going into this season, as young as we were, if you would have told me we would have finished the season 16-15 and made it to the quarters, I would have said we had a successful season. Tonight just made it disappointing to finish the season this
way.”
Williams led Lafayette Christian with 17 points. Other Lafayette Christian players in double figures were Pierre Dupre with 13 and Victor Dupre with 11.
Brooks Thomas led Central Catholic with six points. Other Eagles scorers were Bias, four, and D.J. Lewis, Da’mondrick Blackburn, Elijah Swan and Ross Thomas with two each.