Points off turnovers doom Lady Tigers in loss to Assumption

The Assumption High School Lady Mustangs feasted on points on turnovers as they eased topped the Morgan City Lady Tigers 65-40 in District 7-4A girls basketball action in Morgan City Monday.
Leading the Lady Mustangs’ charge, both scoring and finding open teammates, was junior Raven Robertson who had 32 points. Robertson rarely missed during the game with her shooting for fifth-ranked Assumption.
“They’re a real good team,” Morgan City Coach Duriel Singleton said. “Got good ball handlers. … (Robertson) was just unstoppable.”
Singleton said his team doesn’t have the basketball knowledge to do the “little things”, and Robertson took advantage of it.
“(Robertson) exposed that, and that’s how she was able to score,” Singleton said. “We played with them in that first quarter a little bit, but we turned the ball over. We missed a bunch of layups. We missed free throws. They were No. 5 for a reason. They’re a good team, and we gave them all we had.”
While he was expecting Robertson and Elaina Rivere to be problems for the Lady Tigers, Singleton said freshman Lilly Guillot, who finished the game with 13 points, including a trio of three-pointers, surprised him with her shooting.
“That’s great when you can have a freshman come in and shoot the ball, and she shot the ball great for them,” he said.
Assumption Coach Amy Blanchard said that when Robertson has a hot hand like she did Tuesday, it forces team to give her attention and allows others, like Rivere, who scored 11, and Guillot, opportunities to score.
Singleton said Guillot’s hot shooting “threw a wrinkle” in his defensive plan.
Morgan City never led Tuesday but tied the game once at 2-all on India Richardson’s offensive rebound and put back. From there, Assumption began to pull away, building its lead in the first quarter to as large as 12 on two occasions, the last time at 21-9 after two free throws by Rivere with 11.8 seconds left.
The Lady Mustangs led 21-11 after a quarter after Sh’Diamond Holly’s offensive rebound and bucket late.
Assumption continued to build on its lead in the second quarter, while Morgan City tried to keep things close as the teams went into the locker room with Assumption ahead 37-24.
While Morgan City still was in striking distance coming out of halftime, Assumption essentially put the game away in the third quarter, outscoring Morgan City 19-3 in the period.
The Lady Tigers had multiple looks around the basket but could get nothing to fall until Holly made the first of two free-throw attempts with 36.5 second remaining in the third to cut Assumption’s lead to 56-25.
The Lady Tigers’ lone field goal in the third period came on Anaria Clark’s lay in with 15 seconds left, and Assumption led 56-27 heading to the fourth.
Blanchard was upset with her team and got on them at halftime about giving Morgan City second-chance shots. However, she said she couldn’t have imagined how well her team limited Morgan City in the period.
“To hold them scoreless in the third all the way to like 33 seconds was pretty remarkable,” she said.
Morgan City got no closer than 19 points in the fourth after Holly’s bucket cut Morgan City’s deficit to 56-37.
Holly led Morgan City with 20. Other Morgan City scorers were Deryon Johnson, eight; Nikeisha Paddio, four; and Crappell, Clark and Richardson, two each.
Morgan City will return to action Friday when it hosts Terrebonne in nondistrict action.