Queb's Corner

Submitted by admin on Thu, 04/03/2008 - 17:30

In my seven year’s of covering sports at the Crowley Post-Signal, I have seen numerous injustices done to high school athletes when it has come to postseason honors.

For the most part, I try to bite my tongue and rectify the wrongdoing on my All-Parish team.

But after this year’s 5-AAA All-District girls’ basketball team was released, I had enough.

Northwest won the league, going 7-1, earning two spots on the first team and the Coach of the Year award.

Fine.

Church Point finished third and was also awarded two spots as well as the Most Valuable Player award. And Crowley was fourth and grabbed one spot on the five-player first team.

And Notre Dame, the runnerup?

That’s my gripe.

For the second year in a row, Notre Dame finished second and didn’t get a single player on the first team!

Now that wouldn’t be a problem if the Lady Pios scoring was spread out with no visible standouts on the team. But that really wasn’t the case at all.

The Lady Pios DID have a standout - Ali Lucas -and she was quite visible in every league game. So much so that she was the leading scorer out of all players nominated for the All-District team.

I’m talking about the only team to split with Northwest in league play. In the first meeting, Lucas scored 15 points in a loss. In the second game, she poured in 32 in a victory.

She scored over 20 twice against Church Point, combining for 45 points and scored a total of 39 in two contests against Crowley. Ironically, her lowest scoring output came against the league’s last-place team, Rayne. She scored 20 in the first game but just nine in the second.

We’re talking about a 5-foot-5 guard who averaged 19.6 points to lead the district and shot 81 percent from the free throw line while attempting well over 50 freebies in the eight-game stretch.

That also led the district.

She also averaged 4.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game.

Yet she was just a second-team selection.

Numbers don’t lie, but in this case, they obviously didn’t matter, either.

I wasn’t at the meeting and I have no idea what went on.

But I can tell you my thoughts. Placing second in district, being the only team to beat the league champion and not getting a single player on the first team, well...

Apparently the Coach of the Year honor went to the wrong person, too!