Bulldogs move to 10-1, closely watch this week’s EIHS-CLA match

White Castle High claimed a trio of District 8-A victories last week to move to a league-leading 10-1, but as this week’s round of action began, Coach Ronald Johnson was watching closely to see the results of the East Iberville-Christian Life Academy game played Tuesday after sports deadline.

“We have one more district game left this coming week. We play Ascension Christian to finish up. But we will be watching to see if East Iberville can knock off Christian Life so we don’t have to play them in a title tiebreaker,” noted Coach Johnson in an interview Saturday.

The Castlemen (21-8, 10-1) knocked off St. John, Ascension CHS, and title rival East Iberville last week to maintain an edge over Christian Life (16-10, 9-1). East entered Tuesday night’s game in Baton Rouge with a 20-5 overall record and a 7-3 showing in district play. The EI Tigers are likely headed for the state playoffs as the number three team in the 8-A, but Coach Doug Schultz was hoping for a big road win after falling early last week to White Castle for a third league loss.

In other district play, West St. John High maintained a fourth-place 5-5 mark, while Ascension CHS (5-23, 3-7), Ascension Christian (6-10, 1-9), and St. John (4-21, 0-10) are out of the state playoff picture.

Here is a roundup of last week’s games involving parish teams:

 WCHS 48, ST. JOHN 27:

Coach Johnson kept his regular starters on the bench and went with his backup players against hosting St. John Friday night, which is winless in district and playing without a single returning regular player from last season.

Sixth man Terrance Fair led the way for the White Castle offense as the game’s scoring leader with 22 points, while Darmarius Wesley and Terrance Taylor followed him with 8 and 6 points, respectively. Meanwhile, Coach Johnson said Leo Jones played a solid game under the boards in the 21-point victory.

Andrew Simpson led the SJHS club with 8 points, while Connor “Dunker” Case tallied 7 points including a slam-dunk basket in the game. Corey Kimble notched 5 points and Gary Comeaux 3 points. Simpson led the Eagles in scoring through four games last week as he averaged 11 points a contest.

WCHS 77, ACHS 21:

The Bulldogs pushed their league-leading district record to 9-1 and their season mark to an impressive 20-8 with a makeup game rout of Ascension CHS last Wednesday in Donaldsonville.

The Bulldog defense held ACHS to only a single point in the first period and went on to limit them to quarter points of 9, 8, and 3. The Castlemen led 28-10 at intermission and then rolled up a 49-11 second half margin.

Taylor and Wesley led the WCHS effort with 13 and 11 points respectively. Quadry Allen, Jalen Bellock, and Jones tallied 8 apiece. Fair, Shawn Williams and Stephan Jones netted 7 apiece, while Randy Foster chipped in 6 and Isaac O’Bear 2 points. Foster, O’Bear, and Allen were the only starting lineup players out of the scoring group as WCHS mentor Ronald Johnson substituted quickly.

WCHS 71, EIHS 62:

The Bulldogs opened last week’s competition with a Tuesday night home court victory over 8-A title challenger and parish rival East Iberville.

The win boosted the Bulldogs to 8-1 in league play and marked their second win of the 8-A over EIHS, which fell to 7-3 and 20-5 overall.

White Castle entered the game ranked fourth in the state 1-A polls, while East was right behind them at fifth and another league rival Christian Life was sixth.

Six Bulldogs, who are regulars in the WCHS lineup, tallied in double figures in the victory, while a seventh scored 9 points. The Castlemen pulled away in the second period with a 20-12 advantage and they coasted from there, bagging 10 of 14 baskets in the third period to take a 14-point cushion at the start of the final stanza.

Daniel Allen led the WC offense with 14, while Ronald Martin, Randy Foster, and Fair each tallied a dozen points. Isaac O’Bear netted 10 and Quadry Allen 9 points.

The visiting Tigers had balanced scoring as well. Seniors Greg Pickett and Andre Wright led with 14 points apiece, while Richard Johnson tallied 10 and Jarrod Redditt netted 8 points.

“We missed six layup shots in the game that we should have made and we missed too many three-point shots, but White Castle’s defense had a lot to do with that. We worked on getting the ball to (Greg) Pickett on the inside for the upcoming game at Christian Life to help to take the pressure off our outside shooting,” explained Coach Schultz Saturday.

ST. JOHN LOSES TRIO:

The inexperienced Eagles lost all three of their games last week against a pair of top-ten ranked district foes and a solid .500 ball opponent. In addition to falling to White Castle 48-27, the Eagles lost 56-42 to Ascension Christian, by a 42-26 score to 5-5 West St. John, and by a lopsided 71-18 score to 9-1 Christian Life.

“We continued to look like the inexperienced basketball team we are. We have some young players, however, who are learning the game while going up against some of the top teams in our classification in the state ranks. We have a great district with White Castle, East Iberville, Christian Life, and West St. John all top-notch foes. We have put together a losing season, but it was against outstanding competition,” noted SJHS mentor Cassidy Russo as he monitored the play of the school’s eighth grade hoop team Saturday morning.

Senior transfer Andrew Simpson led the Eagle offense in each of their four losses last week. He opened by tallying 11 of his team’s 18 points in their lopsided loss to Christian Life.

The Eagles went on to fall to West St. John. Simpson paced SJHS with 8 points, while fellow senior Tyler Shields netted 6, Case 5, and Kimble 4 points.

The next outing, Simpson knocked down 16 points in the Eagles’ 14-point loss to Ascension Christian, and then he tallied his team-leading 8 points in the loss to White Castle to close out the week.

The Eagles fell to 4-22 overall and to 0-11 in district with one game remaining this week.