Bulldogs remain undefeated in district with win over Panthers

With last Friday's 82-35 victory over Pine Prairie, the Ville Platte boy's basketball team improved to 3-0 in District 5-3A play.
After the two teams played a tight first quarter with the Bulldogs holding just a 12-11 lead, Ville Platte seized control of the contest with a dominant second and third quarters of play.
In the second quarter, Ville Platte outscored Pine Prairie 29-4. Davonte Fontenot and Ernest Roberts both scored seven points a piece in the period as the Bulldogs built up a 41-15 lead by halftime.
"I feel like the key to that win was simply being quicker and stronger," Ville Platte coach Launey Coward said. "Pine seems to have a lot of young players now and it will probably take time for them to really start competing with stronger teams like us."
The Bulldogs were able to find their rhythm on the offensive end of the court, but even more impressive was the defensive effort and execution in the quarter.
"We threw a couple of different presses at them to see if they could handle it," Coward said. "We ended up getting a lot of steals because of it and converting those into easy baskets."
Ville Platte kept up the dominating pace in the third quarter as the Bulldogs scored 25 points with RJ Williams scoring 10 of those points. The Panthers meanwhile managed only 13 in the third.
Entering the final quarter of play, Ville Platte had built up a comfortable 33-point lead and the Bulldogs would easily go on to record the 47-point win.
Ville Platte was led by Roberts' 17 points, while Fontenot added 10 and RJ Williams had 12.
Josiah Ortis paced Pine Prairie with 15 points in the loss.
"I was able to play all my players so that kept us fresher than them so as the game went on they simply ran out of gas," Coward said. "We got stronger because of the resting time the players got during the game."