Lady Trojans look to reach the postseason

The Sacred Heart Lady Trojan basketball team has made the playoffs the last three years in a row. And, the last three years in a row, the Lady Trojans have bowed out after a first round loss. Head Coach Stephanie Fontenot and her squad have worked really hard this off season and all of the 2014 pre-season to try to make sure that this trend does not continue.
To get back to the playoffs, and have the opportunity to break that trend, is going to take some really good play from a relatively young team.
“We have some young players this year, after losing eight seniors off of last year’s squad,” stated Fontenot.
“However, these young ladies do have some playing experience. We were able to get the returning players some playing time last year. Having players with some type of playing time will help us tremendously for the upcoming season.”
The Lady Trojans do have two returning starters coming back this season. Sophomore Catherine Poche and senior Natalie Earls return from a squad that went 13-12 last year. Fontenot will be relying on the other players with experience to step up and fill the void left by the seniors lost to graduation. Senior Hannah Lemoine, juniors Gabby Andrepont and Kari Aguillard will be called upon to give valuable minutes and even replace holes left behind in the line-up.
Fontenot also is looking to Sydney Shiver, Andi Landry, Moira Parks and Erin Fontenot, a group of sophomores to play important roles in the course of the season.
The Lady Trojans have loaded up on their schedule this year for one important purpose; to prepare for the tough district play they will face this year. The non-district schedule includes Opelousas Catholic, Menard, Pine Prairie, Church Point and perennial powerhouse Vermilion Catholic.
The district schedule does not get any easier, as Sacred Heart must face last year’s state runner-up North Central as well as St. Edmund and Catholic of Pointe Coupee.
“We purposely scheduled a hard non-district schedule to prepare ourselves for district,” said Fontenot. “Our district is very tough. For example, North Central only lost one player off of their team and they were the state runner-up last year. Having a tough schedule also gives a chance to collect power points which will help our seeding in the playoffs.”
It would go a long way this season if the Lady Trojans can get off to a fast start. To do that will take a young squad having to grow up fast. With the game experience that some of these young ladies have, that may happen sooner than later. To be able to make the playoffs for the fourth year in a row would be special. However, to win a first round playoff game would be a tremendous step in an already solid program.