By T. Scott Boatright
GRAMBLING — Sometimes the odds are stacked against an athletic team, no matter what kind of effort is put in.
Lincoln Preparatory School’s girls basketball team is learning that the hard way this season, going through another lesson Friday night as the Lady Panthers fell 43-19 to District 1-1A foe Ringgold inside the LPS Gym.
The loss dropped the Lady Panthers to 2-13 overall and 1-2 in district play while Ringgold moved to 4-14 and 1-2.
Lady Panthers volleyball coach Demitria Johnson took over the helm of the girls basketball team unexpectedly at the start of the season and knew going in she would be facing an uphill battle this season.
“Our girls are not the girls basketball team that plays year-round and concentrates on being part of a basketball team all day long,” Johnson said. “Our kids are academic kids that chose to play basketball and need a little more work to start being consistent in their play.
“So, our basketball IQ needs to grow, our conditioning needs to get better and that will come as they learn it takes commitment to play the game the way they need to. I inherited this team that had no kind of preseason conditioning or anything like that. We have a lot of kids who are busy doing a lot of things (including playing volleyball for Johnson) and are coming in and out of practice.”
Johnson said the future is bright for Lincoln Prep girls hoops, but that for now, patience will be a virtue.
“I know the future is going to be better because we’re raising a lot of young students who are going to help us get better,” Johnson said. “We’re training a lot of our elementary school students and they will be our future.
“And these girls out on the court for us now will get better. We just have to be patient at this point. Once I get a group that can consistently come to practice, I think we’ll see a lot more growth. Right now I’m just trying to get them to consistently show up at practice, because we know games are actually won or lost in practice.”
The Lady Panthers’ inconsistency showed in Friday’s game against Ringgold.
They actually led 6-5 at the end of the first quarter thanks to three baskets from the floor by Synniah Spann.
And they moved out to a 9-5 lead at the 6:30 mark of the second stanza on a Kayla Ferguson free throw and a layup by A’jah Saulsberry.
But the Lady Redskins then went on an 11-1 run — that single point coming on a Spann free throw — to take a 16-10 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Ringgold put the game away in the third quarter by scoring 16 straight points while holding Lincoln Prep scoreless to put the Lady Panthers down 32-10 heading into the final eight minutes of play.
Za’kyah Wimberly added a 3-pointer and Ferguson scored on a layup for the Lady Panthers in the fourth quarter, but the game was already out of reach heading into that final stanza.
Spann led the Lady Panthers with seven points while Lyric Reed was Ringgold’s top scorer with 20.
Next up for Lincoln Prep will be a game at Homer on Monday.
