COUSHATTA, LA — Red River High School Lady Bulldogs defeated the Lady Trojans 64-47 last Thursday night in the quarterfinals of the LHSAA Class 2A playoffs.

Red River senior center, at 5-11, was indeed a force near the basket and finished with 20 points. Senior point guard/shooting guard Morgan Payne also had 20 points for the Lady Bulldogs while senior point guard Danielle Burton scored 13 points.

“They have a good low post player and Lewis and a couple of good guards (Payne and Burton) that we could not contain,” Lady Trojans head coach Lisa Abron said.

Number seven seed and District 2-2A co-champion Ferriday went toe to toe with No. 2 seed and District 3-A champion Red River in the first quarter, which ended with the Lady Bulldogs holding a slim 17-15 lead.

Then the game got away from the Lady Trojans over the next two quarters. Foul trouble, turnovers, and shots not falling hurt them. Abron said those were things the Lady Trojans needed to avoid if they were to upset the Lady Bulldogs.

“We had to make a lot of substitutions, which put a damper of what we had done all season as a team,” Abron said. “We have such a young team. Second quarter, we fell a lot offensive and we turned the ball over. Their crowd was into it. Seems like everything was against us the second and third quarters.”

Red River outscored Ferriday 19-9 in the second quarter to take a 36-24 lead into halftime and 17-8 in the third quarter for a commanding 53-32 advantage. Abron said the Lady Trojans played better in the fourth quarter on both ends of the court, but the 21-point lead was too much to overcome.

Shekayla Miller led the Lady Trojans with 19 points and Pacha Poole finished with 14 points. Tierra Spurs, one of Ferriday High’s leading scorers this season, scored two points.

“We had done our homework on them. They played a lot of full-court, man-to-man defense,” Abron said. “They saw that we could run with them and they slowed (the pace) down a little bit.”

Red River (29-5) advanced to the Class 2A semifinals and will take on No. 6 seed French Settlement High School (28-6) at 2:45 p.m. March 5 at Burton Coliseum in Lake Charles, La.

The Lady Trojans finished their season with an overall record of 25-5.