The basketball season for Manchester Academy’s Lady Mavericks came to a close on Tuesday night when they fell 52-39 against Bayou Academy.
Manchester Academy head basketball coach Emily Poe didn’t believe her squad was quite prepared for the hot-shooting Lady Colts of Bayou.
“We didn’t come out ready to play,” Poe said. “We only scored three points in the first quarter, and that really hurt us. I’m not really sure what happened to be honest.”
Bayou started the game off with a 6-0 run before a Suzanne King layup finally got the Lady Mavs on the board.
A Suzanne King layup and free throw gave the Lady Mavs three points, but Bayou rattled off an another layup and hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give them an 11-3 lead.
The Lady Colts hit two quick jumpers to start the second quarter to give them a 15-3 lead.
Then the Lady Mavs began to fight back. They went on an 11-2 run to make it a 17-14 game.
But Bayou proceeded to finish the half with a 7-2 run to give them a 24-16 lead.
The second half started off sluggish. The first 3:30 of the quarter were scoreless.
Bayou broke the streak with a layup that sparked a 13-7 quarter, giving them a 37-26 lead with a quarter left.
Izzy Mills and Macy Huggins hit back-to-back 3-pointers to start the fourth quarter to cut the score to 37-32, but Bayou finished the game on a 15-10 run to win the game 52-39, ending the season for Manchester.
Suzanne King, Macy Huggins, and Lanie Potter each had a team-high seven points in the loss.
Izzy Mills had six points in the defeat.
Savell Duett was able to produce five points.
Ashlee Sowell had four points, while Elise Sowell had three points to round things out.
Despite the loss, Poe could not have been more excited with what her team accomplished this year.
“First of all, we accomplished something that hadn’t been done in quite some time here,” Poe said. “We placed in the conference tournament and moved on to north state. I was very proud of all we accomplished this year. The girls bought in to what we were doing and worked hard to get us to where we were.”
But for Poe, it is time to turn the page on the 2015-16 season and get her girls ready for a new year.
“We’re going to work hard over the summer to fix our defensive problems,” Poe said. “We’re going to work on our fundamentals a lot this summer. We’ll work on our shooting a lot. Those are some areas where we need to improve during the offseason.”
The one thing that the Lady Mavericks won’t have to improve on, however, is their ability to fight against all odds.
“The thing I loved about this team is that they never gave up,” Poe said. “It didn’t matter how far down we got. They always fought back. This team had a lot of heart.”
The Lady Mavericks ended the season with an 11-17 record.
