By T. Scott Boatright
The Simsboro High School basketball team knew it was facing an uphill battle as the Tigers played in Game 3 of Saturday’s 2026 Michael Lyons Classic, which featured seven contests inside the Lincoln Preparatory School Gym.
Lyons, who died in February of 2023, coached Lincoln Prep head coach Antonio Hudson at the old Grambling Lab High School, where Lyons chalked up a 737-100 record guiding the Kittens boys team and 434-98 coaching the Lady Kittens from 1979-2008, capturing six state championships and 40 district titles during that span.
Simsboro was a late entry to the tournament, filling the void left after Arcadia had to pull out of the event because a flu outbreak left the team without enough players to field a team.
So, the Tigers took their place to play Sterlington, and put up a battle against the bigger Panthers before a late third-quarter surge ended up propelling Sterlington to a 72-62 win over Simsboro before a standing-room only packed house.
Don’t be deceived, the game was actually much tighter than the final score indicates despite the fact that Sterlington threatened to run away with it early on.
The Panthers scored the first seven points of the contest, including a four-point play on a 3-pointer by Cooper Nelson, who was fouled on the play and added a free throw before Simsboro’s Ahmad Smith hit a 3-pointer 2:48 into the game to finally put the Tigers on the scoreboard at 7-3.
But trailing early didn’t surprise the Tigers.
“We kind of expected it, so it was like, we knew our main focus had to be on Cooper,” Ahmad Smith said. “It all starts with him for them, and they have other guys, but we knew we had to focus on him.”
Simsboro pulled within three points at 9-6 on a short jumper by Justin Terrell before the taller Panthers used rebounding and second-chance opportunities to move out on top 23-18 by the end of the opening stanza.
“Being undersized as a team, we know we’re not going to be able to get in there down low and battle,” said Simsboro junior guard Mike Smith. “Any time we play a bigger team, we expect them to beat us on the glass. Our thing is, when we get a board, we have to move back the other way in transition.
“We’ve got good guards, so we know getting down on transition is how we score and how we get back on defense.”
The Tigers roared back in the second quarter, taking their first lead of the game with 4:05 left in the first half when Landry Roberts grabbed an offense and tossed a short jumper through the nets to put Simsboro on top 27-26.
Simsboro then slowed down its pace for reasons head coach Adam Wodach explained after the game.
“Selfishly, I’m super excited about where our program has come in terms of our coachability,” Wodach said. “We’re the ones who know where our team is at and we had a battle (Friday) night against Castor (a game the Tigers opened their District 1-B season with a 87-65 win). It was a battle.
“So today, I think we had some heavy legs, and I thought that tempo was good for us. I was really just trying to rest on offense a little bit because we had heavy legs. In the past, that;s something we’ve struggled to do — when we try to slow it down or change the pace — but today we did it great. We killed time off the clock and made it a five-point game at halftime. I really felt good about where we were at with that.”
Simsboro cut the Sterlington lead down to three points when Ahmad Smith hit his second straight jump shot at the 5:46 mark of the third quarter to make the score 46-43 in favor of the Panthers.
“The atmosphere was great,” said Ahmad Smith, who led the Tigers with 25 points. “It was our first time being in this tournament and we were happy to be here. At first it was like, we didn’t want to play worrying about power points and making the playoffs. We’re trying to get up there and not get bumped down where we don’t make the playoffs. But after winning (Friday), we felt like we might as well play and try to make something good happen.”
The Panthers rallied later in the third quarter to take a 56-46 by the end of the stanza
Mike Smith, who finished with 24 points for Simsboro, scored the first basket of the fourth quarter on a short jumper 33 seconds into the period, but Sterlington countered with a 8-0 run that allowed the Panthers to hold a double-digit advantage the rest of the contest.
Amaren Woodard and Terrell added five points each for the Panthers while Sterlington’s Nelson led all scorers with 29 points.
Wodach admitted his team is still learning a new style with a new attitude after senior and key player Jakaleb Modest was dismissed from the team a little more than a week ago and made playing in the tournament despite short notice that much more important.
“We’ve had some turnover on our team, unfortunately, and I think right now we need to play games because we have to kind of reshape our identity as a whole, as a team,” Wodach said. “So, to get the opportunity to go play a really good team, in a great playoff-like environment with new starters, a new formula and new shape and all that .. I think that in practice you can only do so much, so this gave us game experience as a whole. As soon as we got the opportunity to play in this tourney, I said I would play anybody anywhere.”
