RUSTON, La. — Despite some surges from Alexandria Friday night, the Ruston High Lady Bearcats (13-5) got a big win over the Lady Trojans (17-10) 62-41 in the RHS Main Gym as District 2-5A play continues.
Ruston’s win was due in large part to outscoring ASH 23-11 in the second and 25-8 in the fourth en route to the victory.
“I just think coming out, we just knew that we had to play our game and get back to doing things the correct way,” Ruston High Head Coach LaShanda Cooper said. “I know we’ve had a long break, so fatigue sets in, and we made a lot of mental errors during that time. Being able to lock in and just get that chemistry back and knock those wide open shots down — it really helped us out this game. We knew they were going to come in rebounding and crashing boards. And our main thing was trying to box them out and keep them off the boards. So, like I said, fatigue set in at times, and our biggest thing is trying to get stops. We’ve just got to get back to being more consistent.”
Both defenses showed up for the first five minutes of the night as only senior Journi Douglas for Ruston and Akehla Lyons for ASH got points for their respective teams with the Lady Bearcats up 3-2 with 3:18 to go in the first quarter. ASH’s Kenya Russell then knocked down two free throws to give the Lady Trojans the led at 4-3 before junior Angelica Green knocked down a logo, straight-away three-pointer to put Ruston up 6-4 with 2:41 to go in the quarter. Douglas would get one more triple in the quarter to tie the game 9-9 with under a minute to go in the quarter before ASH started a 5-0 run that bled into the second.
After getting down 16-9 early in the second quarter, Ruston would use an 10-0 run to retake the lead at 17-16 with under five to go in the period thanks in large part to Ruston sophomore Jayleen Spann scoring six of those 10 points by herself. The Lady Bearcats would keep the offensive momentum going through the remainder of the quarter and led the Lady Trojans 32-22 at the half. In total, Ruston had seven three-pointers in the first half alone.
The Lady Trojans would swing some of the momentum back their way to start the second half after outscoring Ruston 8-3 through the first four minutes of the third quarter before sophomore Adrianna Robinson put a shot back in after getting and offensive rebound from her own miss to put Ruston up 37-30 with four minutes in the period. Again, it was the defenses for both teams getting the job down, and ASH slowly crept back in to trail 37-33 going into the fourth quarter. A majority of the scoring opportunities in the third came from a host of offensive rebounds.
Senior Bearcat Akeirah Jones would open the fourth quarter with a corner-three to give Ruston its first basket in over four minutes to give the Lady Bearcats a 40-33 lead with 7:51 to play. And after one made free throw by ASH, Ruston put together and 8-0 run thanks to two more threes by Douglas and a fast break layup by Spann to give Ruston its largest lead of the night at that point at 48-34 with 5:23 left to play and would cruise to the victory.
Douglas led Ruston with 15 points (all from three-pointers), while Spann finished with 11 points off the bench. Both Robinson and junior Angelica Green added 10 points apiece, as well.
“We’ve been doing a whole heck of a lot of shooting and trying to keep them locked in mentally,” Cooper said. “When they miss a shot, we’re trying to continue encouraging them and getting them to understand, ‘Hey, you missed that shot. You can’t go back and get it, worry about the next shot.'”
Ruston returns to action Monday, Feb. 9, to take on the Lady Tigers of Neville at home.
