Tigers roar past Blackcats

SIMSBORO — In sports, it’s often not how you start but how you finish that counts.

The top-seeded Simsboro High School boys basketball team took that cliché to heart Monday night in their second round Class B Louisiana High School Athletics Association home playoff matchup with Florien High, overcoming a sloppy start to come out on top by a score 102-61.

Rocking white jerseys with “The Boro” stamped across their chests, the Tigers came out of the gate a little flat to start the game. Turning the ball over five times in the first three minutes of play, they found themselves down 17-10 about halfway through the opening quarter.

It was only a matter of time before they turned up the heat, however, ending the quarter on a 15-2 run, capped by a vicious fastbreak slam by star senior LSU-Alexandria signee Jakemin Abney.

“I think we have to give (Florien) a lot of credit,” said Simsboro head coach Josh Brown. “They were not scared of us, and they came out with a lot of intensity. That caused us the turn the ball over some, because they were just playing so hard, but I knew there was no way they could sustain that pace. I just kept telling our guys to calm down, value the basketball, don’t give them free buckets and eventually we’re going to wear them down. And that’s what we did.”

Brown’s message was well received, especially by SHS seniors Abney and Kalep Crane. The dynamic duo combined to average 46 points and 15 rebounds a game during the regular season, and they kept that pace tonight, before being subbed out before the fourth quarter in a game that was all but wrapped up.

Crane racked up 25 points on 10-for-14 shooting while Abney reached 19. Abney lived at the charity stripe for most of the game, draining 11 of his 12 opportunities at the line.

Senior forward Ja marian Cato was on his way to a big night with seven points in the first half before struggling with foul trouble later on.

“We depend on them,” Brown said. “Every night, they’re able to score, defend and rebound. They’re very important. We go a lot deeper than just those three, but we do rely on their leadership and their experience, because they have a lot of experience.”

Other contributors for the Tigers included junior sharpshooter Braxton Taylor, who drained all four of his three point attempts on his way to a 14-point outing. Freshman guard Chilaydrian Newton poured in 16 points on 50% shooting, as well.

Stifling defense allowed Simsboro to break away in the second quarter, and they never looked back from there, outscoring the Blackcats 77-42 in the second through fourth quarters. Not even a game-high 29 points from Florien senior Jackson Weldon could help his team overcome the Tigers’ full-court pressure defensively.

“I tell our guys what wins championships is our championship five, and that’s our full court, man-to-man defense,” Brown said. “We have other defenses that we can run, but that’s what I believe gives us the best chance to win a state championship. We can depend on that to get stops when we need to get stops. We like to play fast, and our defense turns into offense, quick.”

Brown will look to deploy a similar defensive approach when the now 30-4 Tigers play host to the eighth-seeded Fairview Panthers in the quarterfinals on Thursday, three wins away from a three-peat of the LHSAA Class B State Title.

“That’s our goal from day one” Brown said. “As soon as we won our second state championship, they started talking about what we’ve got to do to win our third. We really went to work in the weight room and in summer league, and that’s our one goal that we set: that we wanted to win (another) state championship.”