Central Catholic makes better use of turnovers in playoff victory

Turnovers were a problem for No. 6 Central Catholic and No. 11 Sacred Heart during their Division IV regional round contest Monday in Morgan City.
However, Central Catholic (19-4) just simply made better use of the quality possessions they had in a 61-49 second-round victory.
“It’s just one of those games I think we both caused each other to play sloppy on offense, and we just made more shots down the stretch than they did,” Central Catholic coach Ree Case said.
Case noted that the Eagles had some solid offensive production from their bench.
Sacred Heart coach Jean-Paul Boullion said his team had 28 turnovers in the loss.
“We started the game 2-for-8 from the free-throw line,” he said. “That didn’t help either. Mentally, we were not in the game. That’s on me.”
Central Catholic jumped out to an 18-5 lead after a quarter. During the initial period, Sacred Heart (12-13) had a lengthy scoring drought that allowed Central Catholic to turn a 5-4 advantage into an 18-4 lead. The Trojans finally ended the drought when Austin Darbonne made the second of two free-throw attempts late in the first quarter to make the score 18-5.
The Trojans trimmed their second-quarter deficit to 24-17 in the second quarter after an offensive rebound by Darbonne and a basket, but Central Catholic closed the quarter with an 8-0 run for a 32-17 halftime lead.
Again, Sacred Heart came out in the third quarter and trimmed its deficit to eight points on two separate occasions, the last at 36-28 on Darbonne’s basket.
“We challenged them at halftime to come out for the first four minutes,” Bouillon said. “That was going to be the most important part of the game that we had left, and we came out and we responded. Yes, we extended our pressure. We went to a full-court press, and part of that was to try and get easy baskets.”
However, he said Sacred Heart only scored four points off Central Catholic turnovers.
The Trojans could not get any closer.
Vernon Singleton’s three-point play gave the Eagles a 39-28 advantage with five minutes left in the third quarter. On the play, Singleton was fouled but made a basket off an assist by Damon-drick Blackburn before converting the free throw.
From there on, the Eagles maintained at least a nine-point advantage for the remainder of the game, extending its lead to as much as 15 points on multiple occasions, the last on Singleton’s basket off an assist by Kye Morgel for a 61-46 lead.
Singleton led three Central Catholic scorers in double figures with 16 points. D.J. Lewis scored 13 points and Blackburn added 11. Other Central Catholic scorers were Morgel, eight; Gary Michael Nicar, six; Tyler Smith, four; and R.J. Bennett, three.
Darbonne led Sacred Heart with 19 points, while Chase Tate also reached double figures with 12 points.
Case said he thought Sacred Heart was a very good No. 11 seed who played a lot of quality teams and won many games this year.
“I’m glad we won,” Case said. “Didn’t play very well, but it’s the first time some of these guys have been in the playoffs, so any playoff win is a good win.”
The Eagles have no seniors this year and multiple new starters this season and others coming off the bench who didn’t play last year.
Central Catholic will continue postseason play Friday when it travels to face No. 3 Calvary Baptist in Shreveport in a 6 p.m. contest. Calvary Baptist advanced after defeating No. 14 St. Frederick 72-33 in other second-round action last week.
Patterson falls
in regional round
The Patterson Lumb-erjacks fell in the Class 3A regional round 50-29 to Booker T. Washington Tuesday in New Orleans.
Booker T. Washington led 18-8 after a quarter. Patterson outscored the home team 12-10 in the second period and trailed 28-20 at halftime. However, Booker T. Washington outscored Patterson 12-4 in the third period for a 40-24 lead. The Lions had a 9-5 scoring advantage in the fourth period.
Josiah Jennings had seven points and 17 rebounds to lead Patterson, while Louis Jones scored eight points and had four rebounds.
Other top Patterson contributors were Tylon Walton, seven points and two rebounds; Dillon Gunner, five points; Taij Tillman, two points and two rebounds; and Kendall Francois, three assists.
The Lumberjacks finished the season with a 23-9 record, while Booker T. Washington improves to 15-8. Booker T. Washington will advance to the Class 3A quarterfinals where it will meet top seed Madison Prep. Madison Prep advanced after defeating No. 16 Jennings 79-51 in other second-round action.