Lady Griffins bounce back with district win over EA

After dropping their first district game to St. Joseph's Academy on Friday night, the Dutchtown Lady Griffins were looking to get back on track at home against parish rival East Ascension on Monday night.

Dutchtown began each half with an impressive run that continued to drop the Lady Spartans into a deeper hole. The result was an emphatic 49-26 victory that helped the Lady Griffins improve to 3-1 in district play.

"We didn't play well at St. Joe's on Friday. Tonight was better," Lady Griffin head coach Annette Lowery said. "I'm still not 100 percent pleased. We still have some kinks we need to get out. We need to protect the ball and not turn it over, and we gave up lots of offensive boards--which is not good."

It was by no means a perfect performance by Dutchtown, but they used aggressive, opportunistic defense to convert turnovers into transition points. They also had a nice balance of inside points by La'Shon Redditt and outside shooting by Kelsie Baker.

The Lady Griffins got off to a great start as they converted two steals into transition buckets to take a 7-0 lead. Later, an and-one play down low helped Dutchtown start the game on a 12-1 run.

East Ascension was able to end the quarter on a 5-0 spurt to trim the deficit to 12-6 heading into the second.

The Spartans them amped up their defense, but they could never take advantage because the shots simply would not fall for them. Both teams were cold as ice during the quarter.

Dutchtown finally made something happen late as they used a Redditt lay-in down low to ignite a 5-0 run--which allowed them to match their biggest lead of the game at 11.

The Lady Spartans got a put-back at the buzzer from Faith Carmouche to cut the deficit to 19-8 heading to the half.

The Lady Griffins started the second half the same way they started the first, with an impressive run.

Baker caught the hot hand right out of the gates as she drilled a 3-pointer to put the lead back at 11.

After another Redditt lay-in down low, Baker nailed another trey. She then continued her assault from the perimeter as she put in a third 3-pointer.

It all contributed to a 13-2 run by Dutchtown to start the third quarter. When Kyra Harleaux sank a jumper, the Lady Griffins were able to take a huge 38-14 lead into the fourth quarter.

East Ascension never gave up though. They started the fourth quarter on a 6-0 run to cut the deficit to 18.

After Dutchtown started to get sloppy with the ball and turn it over in bunches, the Lady Spartans were able to get within 16, but they never could get the deficit under that mark.

The Lady Griffins finally kept their hands on the ball and went on a 5-0 run to put the advantage back to 21. From there, Dutchtown cruised to the 49-26 victory.

Redditt was a force down low for the Lady Griffins. She dominated with a game-high 18 points. Baker's hot second half gave her 11; that included three 3-pointers.

However, it was Dutchtown's defense that put them over the top. In addition to forcing so many turnovers, they held East Ascension to single-digits in three of the four quarters.

No Lady Spartans scored more than five points. Laria Ealy, Faith Williams and Kendall Alvarez all reached that mark.

"I liked the way our defense played. I hope we can keep that going for the next five games. We're halfway through," Lowery said.

The win over their parish foe pushed their overall record to 16-11. Their 3-1 district mark put them in second place, only behind 4-0 St. Joseph's.

They'll try to earn their fourth district win this Friday night as they visit McKinley.