St. Amant girl's basketball drops road game to St. Michael

The St. Amant Lady Gators stepped down in classification to face a struggling St. Michael squad on Monday night.

It was a clash of two teams going in totally different directions. St. Amant had won back to back games while St. Michael had lost five straight. Both streaks quickly went out the window as the Warriors used suffocating defense to pull off an easy 49-28 victory.

The Gators have had an up-and-down season but prior to their trip to St. Michael, they had put things together and won four of their last six games.

Two of those wins came in last week's tournament at Archbishop Hannan. After dropping a two-point contest against Pine to open the action, the Lady Gators put together back-to-back impressive performances. They were able to beat Mount Hermon and Pearl River by a combined 42 points.

On the other end of the spectrum, St. Michael was a wounded team desperately seeking a win. After starting the season an impressive 11-4, they had lost five straight heading into Monday night.

With their backs against the wall, they came out swinging. Meanwhile, St. Amant struggled immensely as they played the game without All-State guard Kara Gremillion.

The Warrior defense set the tone early as they jumped out to a 15-8 lead heading into the second quarter.

That's when St. Michael took total command. While swarming the Lady Gator offense and producing 15 total steals, they held St. Amant to just three points in the quarter.

The Warriors didn't score many points of their own, but the run was good enough to give them a commanding 24-11 lead at the break.

Not much changed for St. Amant in the third. Once again, they were held to single digits. This allowed St. Michael to carry a dominating 37-18 advantage into the fourth quarter.

From there, the Warriors were able to ice away the easy 49-28 victory to improve to 12-9.

They were led by Tyler Morrison as she poured in 16 points, and Sabree Wilson chipped in with 12.

On the defensive end, Essa Badon led the assault on St. Amant ball-handlers as she collected five of the team's 15 steals.

As for St. Amant, they struggled without Gremillion in the lineup. In her absence, Ne'Kyla Williams was able to step up and score 16. Unfortunately for the Lady Gators, they rest of the team was only able to muster 12 additional points.

St. Amant has struggled to score as of late. In four of their last five games, they have scored 38 or fewer, and they only averaged 39 points a contest during that stretch.

The loss halted a possible three-game winning streak, but the Lady Gators still sit at a respectable 10-10.

They'll officially step into district play on Monday as they host parish rival East Ascension. Just three days later, they stay in parish as they visit Dutchtown.