Plaquemine High hosted parish rival White Castle High and Episcopal High of Baton Rouge last Thursday at the COPAC (old PHS gymnasium) for a trio of summer basketball practice contest.
Plaquemine closed out the evening of round ball with a 41-31 victory over WCHS, avenging an earlier week 39-35 road loss to the hosting Bulldogs. The PHS JVs also lost at WCHS by a 26-25 score.
PHS’ summer Green Devils opened with a 36-25 loss to Episcopal in basically a junior varsity contest. The Green Devils held a substantial lead through much of the game, but the young PHS players began to make critical mistakes in defensive coverage, much to the chagrin of Coach Denny Wright. Mistakes allowed the visiting Knights to push ahead gradually in the second half as they built up an 11-point victory.
White Castle hit the floor against EHS for the second game and the Bulldogs used their experienced and talented Class 1-A lineup to romp to victory. Episcopal fielded a young ball club that played without one of top up and coming young hoopsters in the BR Metro area. Missing was Brad Bridgewater.
The Bulldogs hit the court running and romped to an easy 27-point victory over Episcopal. Ronald Martin, Terrance Fair, and Quadry Allen hit key baskets in the game, while Randy Foster controlled the boards. EHS did not move out to cover the outside shooting of the Bulldogs, yet when WCHS players drove to the hoop, their quickness and leaping ability overwhelmed the Knight defense.
The Bulldogs went right back to work against PHS in the finale, and without a “rested” trio like Green Devils’ Treveon Hawkins, Jessie Ward, and Troy Jones.
Hawkins led the PHS varsity group to the 10-point win with 15 points, while Jarrain Jenkins played better in the varsity encounter than he did in the JV contest against EHS. Jenkins tallied a solid 14 points. Also, Ward was steady on defense, while Jones did a good job containing the multi-talented White Castle future senior Martin.
WCHS’ Martin is the returning leading Bulldog scorer. He was joined by a handful of returning WCHS veterans, and that has Bulldog Coach Ronald Johnson smiling, whether or not his team broke even in two meetings with the younger Green Devils or not. Back in the dog pound are good outside shooting guards Quadry Allen and Daniel Allen (he did not play Thursday due to a work commitment) and powerful inside talents Terrance Fair and Randy Foster to go with Martin and a solid group of younger Bulldogs (a couple more of them were missing from the workout along with Daniel Allen).
