NATCHEZ — After struggling through the first part of MAIS District 5-AA play, the Adams County Christian School girls’ basketball team is starting to hit its stride at the right time.

The Lady Rebels scored two big wins last week — the first a district win over Trinity Episcopal and the second a hard-fought non-district contest with Centreville Academy — to improve their overall record to 23-4 on the season and 2-3 in district play.

ACCS played well against the Lady Saints and won the game by 30 points but against Centreville the team struggled, and head coach Melanie Hall said coming out on top in a sloppy game would help her team as tournament play nears.

“Well, as far as confidence, we learned we can play poorly and still get a win,” she said. “That’s big. We did what we had to do at the end and pulled out a win. That gives us confidence down the road.”

Hall said last week showed her team why they need to focus on each game.

“If we are not on our A-game, we are beatable,” she said. “But when we get it going and bring in each piece of our team we are really tough.”

Trinity Episcopal

Trinity followed up its loss to ACCS with another big loss to Brookhaven Academy Friday night.

The Lady Saints have struggled to a 7-15 record so far this season, but head coach Richy Spears said the postseason brings new life.

“There’s no doubt (that the postseason brings new life),” Spears said. “This is just practice essentially.”

Spears said Trinity is still working to find a way to get its offense going before postseason action.

“We just have to work on taking care of the basketball,” he said. “We play hard. We just have to make shots. We’re getting opportunities, we just have to make them.”

Centreville Academy

Centreville head coach John Gray said Saturday night’s matchup with ACCS could have been a preview of a future playoff game, and it helped to get a look at the Lady Rebels in the regular season.

“We think we will play them in the first round of the South-State Tournament if we do our job,” he said. “(If we do) we have to get back on defense and cut (ACCS guard Brandis White) off on the drive.”

Centreville will travel to face Trinity tonight. The Lady Saints will then host ACCS Tuesday night in district action.

Ferriday High School

Across the river, another local team struggled to grab a much needed district win last week.

The Ferriday High School girls lost by 12-points to Jonesboro-Hodge Tuesday night before dropping a 47-43 heart breaker to Sterlington Friday night in District 2-2A.

The Lady Trojans led at the end of each of the first three quarters in the game with Sterlington but could not maintain their advantage in the final period. Sterlington outscored Ferriday 35-20 in the second half.

Ferriday head coach Lisa Abron said part of the reason for the second-half collapse was the addition of another scorer for Sterlington after halftime.

“(Simone Williams) was out in the first half, and I’m not sure why that was,” Abron said. “In the second half, you could tell the difference she made. We tried to deny (leading scorer Milisa Rogers) the ball as much as possible and push her off the block, and we did that well in the first half. In the second half, we took our eyes off (Rogers) to focus on (Williams), and whenever (Williams) missed a shot, (Rogers) was there putting them in.”

Rogers finished the game with 14 points, 10 of which came in the second half. Williams added six points.

Ferriday (4-14, 1-5) will host Lake Providence Tuesday.