Papillion’s 28 leads VPHS to parish crown

By: RHETT MANUEL Sports Editor PINE PRAIRIE – The adage goes that it isn’t how you start, but rather how you finish. Saturday afternoon’s boys championship game in the Evangeline Parish basketball tournament illustrated that old cliche perfectly when the Ville Platte Bulldogs played a strong second half on its way to defeating the Mamou Green Demons 69-58 to take the parish championship once again. Ville Platte junior guard Sage Papillion scored 28 points – 21 in the second half – to spearhead the Bulldogs to its third tournament win of the young season. The Green Demons were determined to make Ville Platte work for it as they took an 18-13 lead out of the first quarter. Mamou found its stroke from beyond the arc early on, sinking four 3-pointers in the frame to get off to a red-hot start. A back-and-forth second quarter came to life when Ville Platte began to find itself behind an 8-0 run that gave it a 25-22 lead towards the end of the first half. The Bulldogs took the lead into the locker room after a 3-pointer, the last bucket for either team in the half, gave them a 30-29 edge heading into the locker room. Mamou continued its 3-point assault coming out of the locker room, as its first four buckets in the third quarter were all 3-pointers and stretched its lead to 41-37. That’s when Papillion decided he’d had enough and took Ville Platte on his back and scored 14 of the team’s final 19 points in the third quarter for the Bulldogs to ultimately end the game after the third quarter, 56-46. But Papillion wasn’t done, as he dropped another seven in the final frame for Ville Platte to finish strong and take home the parish crown comfortably.