Russell Hedges
rhedges@bossierpress.com
The Bossier Bearkats’ season came to an end with a 71-49 loss to the University Lab Cubs in the Class 3A semifinals Thursday night at the Top 28 in Lake Charles.
While disappointed with the loss, Bossier coach Jeremiah Williams was anything but disappointed with the way his players performed his season.
“I may be prouder of this group than any other group,” said Williams, who took his sixth straight team to the semifinals. “Nobody at all expected us to be in the Top 28. We just felt blessed to have the opportunity.
“I’m extremely proud of this group. We were overachievers this year. We just tried to to keep believing. We thought we had a shot. We came and gave it our best shot and we just lost.”
Bossier, which won its sixth straight district title, finished 26-8. University Lab (25-7) will face Richwood in the title game Saturday.
With 6-foot-6 Wayde Sims and 6-7 Maxwell Starwood, the Cubs had a significant height advantage over the Bearkats.
Sims led all scorers with 27 points and Starwood had 11.
Williams said even though his team is used to playing bigger teams, the Cubs’ length gave the Bearkats some problems.
“We don’t use that as an excuse, but over the course of the game just them leaning on you or just having to defend them in that length, they got shots off that they could get off because of their length. They were actually bigger than I thought they were.”
The Bearkats didn’t shoot the ball well throughout the game. It started early, when they fell behind 8-0. But they finally got on track and outscored the Cubs by one the rest of the half. University led 25-18 at the break.
But the Cubs dominated the third quarter and extended the lead to 17.
“We locked in defensively in the second quarter and they had a single-digit quarter, but then we let them have a 24-point quarter,” Williams said. “We just didn’t get it done.
“There’s no excuse, really. We came out saying we were going to have to make a run and stop a run and we didn’t do either one.”
Bossier senior guard Devonte Hall closed his outstanding career with 19 points. Junior guard Kentrell Hardy added 13 and 6-5 senior forward Malik Dunn added eight.
