Motivated victory

BASILE -- Simply being in the playoffs once again should have been enough motivation for the Ville Platte Bulldogs as they hosted the Vidalia Vikings Friday night in Basile.
But, to add to that motivation, the Bulldogs were forced to play away from their home court because of the number of threats on the school that filled social media this past week.
Ville Platte took the extra motivation and used it to power past Vidalia in a 81-62 romp of the Vikings.
The win marks the second year in a row that the Bulldogs take down the Vikings in the post-season, as Ville Platte defeated Vidalia 79-60 in last year’s first round Class 3A playoffs.
Ville Platte (16-11) will now have to travel to Rayville to battle the No. 1 ranked Hornets Tuesday night. No decision has been made yet on the game time.
“Our players were really upset that they could not play the game on their home court,” stated Ville Platte head coach Tommy Jones. “So, they said they were going to make the most of this opportunity. They came out really focused and they did what they needed to do.”
“We came out just like it was any other game and got off to a fast start,” Jones continued. “We have a goal of going deep into the playoffs. We are not running away from that goal.”
Ville Platte did not just start fast, they took off like a rocket to begin the game. Gaining the opening tip, the Bulldogs jumped out to a 9-0 lead before Vidalia could even catch their breath.
After the Vikings scored their first points of the game, Ville Platte answered with a six point run, mostly from the pressure and turnovers created from their three-quarter court trapping press. With four minutes left to go in the first period, the Bulldogs owned a 15-2 lead.
The Vikings began to settle in offensively, as the two teams exchanged baskets for the next three minutes of the quarter. As the initial period came to a close, Vidalia was able to cut down the Ville Platte advantage somewhat by scoring the final four points of the quarter, giving the Bulldogs a 24-13 lead.
An 11 point gap turned into 18 points, as Ville Platte began the second quarter by knocking down the first three baskets, including a three-point shot from Tyler Jones. The Vikings did not retreat, however. Starting at the 6:45 mark, Vidalia responded by scoring the next 12 points to cut the Bulldog lead down to seven, 32-25 with 3:59 to go in the quarter.
The Bulldogs bided their time, exchanging free throws with the Vikings over the next 1:22. The Ville Platte defense was then able to spark another offensive outburst, allowing the Bulldogs to finish out the half with a 12-8 advantage. When the horn had sounded to end the second quarter, Ville Platte headed into the locker room with a 44-33 lead.
“We wanted to trap to start the game and then go man-to-man on them, because we felt they did not have good ball handlers,” said Jones. “I just didn’t feel it was in our best interest to play a zone against them. One thing that the press did was make us more aggressive on the defensive side of the ball and it created a number of turnovers and easy buckets for us.”
A pair of free throws from Tyran Jones and baskets by Jamal Byers and Davondez Doucet jump started Ville Platte to a 50-33 lead to begin the third quarter of play. The next 2:30 belonged to no one, as the two combatants traded points on the scoreboard.
With 3:03 left to go in the period and the Bulldogs leading 57-41, the game saw another offensive explosion from Ville Platte. Behind the slick defensive hands and take it to the rim attitude of Byers, the Bulldogs out scored the Vikings 10-4 down the stretch to earn a 67-45 lead moving into the final period of play.
The pace of the game became ramped up to a feverish pace during the fourth quarter. At one point in time during the period, the two teams were scoring every 10-15 seconds. At the 5:17 mark, the Bulldogs had upped their advantage to 26 points, 77-51. From then on, Ville Platte put the game into cruise control and sailed out of the Basile gym with the win.
Byers led all Bulldog scorers with 23 points. Tyler Jones added 17 points for Ville Platte, while Tyran Jones contributed 16 points.