By Tom Dodge

sportsenews@bellsouth.net

OPELOUSAS - Mangham outscored St. Edmund 15-2 in the final period as the Lady Dragons cruised to a 53-30 win over the Lady Jays in the opening round of the Class 1-A basketball playoffs.

“We got plenty of shots we just couldn’t get a shot to fall,” St. Edmund head coach Louise Johnson said. “That is one of the side effects of not having a home game in your own gym,” she said of the contest being played at Opelousas Catholic Thursday night. “You never know we may have played at home and still not shot the ball well.”

St. Edmund finished the year 15-11, while Mangham improves to 16-13 overall and entertains Plain Dealing (24-5) in the second round.

Mangham jumped out to a 6-1 first quarter lead but three pointers from Taylor Richard and lay-in by Victoria Lejeune and a trey from Leah Andrus helped the Lady Jays grab a 9-8 advantage with 3:01 left in the opening quarter.

The Lady Dragons outscored St. Ed 7-1 in the last half of the period to take a 15-10 advantage into the second frame.

Back-to-back treys from Andrus and Anne-Marie Himel pushed the Lady Jays ahead 16-15 early in the second period as both teams battled for the upper hand.

After Manghan retook at 19-16 margin, St. Edmund responded with a 4-0 run with two drives in the lane by Andrus.

The Lady Dragons closed the half with a 7-2 run to take a 26-22 lead into the locker room.

Ashley Miller hit a jumper at the 6:31 mark of the third period to help the Lady Jays pull closer, 26-24.

Mangham responded with a 8-2 run to forge ahead, 34-26.

After Andrus scored on a put-back bucket with 3:00 minutes left to close the gap to 34-28, the Lady Dragons put in two buckets for a 38-28 lead going into the final period.