Lady Eagles win at buzzer

The Vermilion Catholic Lady Eagles looked like they were on a easy road to winning the 2013 Yuletide Classic.

They started the tournament off with a 48-24 victory over Kaplan. That was followed up by a 41-27 win over Erath, and in the semi-finals they defeated North Vermilion, 46-28.

Throughout the entire tournament VC hadn’t had a challenge, up until the finals where the Acadiana Lady Rams gave VC everything they wanted.

VC was only able to pull off the 38-36, victory with a field goal as time expired.

Everything started off normal for VC. At the end of the first quarter the Lady Eagles had a 12-5 advantage. Katie Frith scored nine of the Lady Eagles 12 points in the first quarter.

The second quarter saw the Rams play a little bit better defense, holding the Lady Eagles to only nine points, but at the end of the first half the Lady Eagles still had the 21-14 advantage.

It stayed that way until about midway through the third quarter, when the Rams team kicked it into another gear.

In the second half of the third quarter and the fourth quarter combined, the Lady Eagles only managed to score eight points.

In that same span the Rams were able to close the gap and tie it 36-34, with less than a minute remaining in the fourth quarter, by scoring 15 points.

With less than a minute remaining on the clock in regulation, Ashailee Brailey was able to make the shot to tie it at 36-36.

Acadiana would drive the ball down the court and miss a shot. On the resulting play, the Lady Eagles would begin the drive back down the court, when Brailey threw a baseball pass across the length of the court to Kaylen
Collins, who with eight second remaining on the clock, went up for the game winning shot, and missed.

The rebound landed in the awaiting hands of Ellen Langlinais who banked it off the back board as time expired to give the Lady Eagles the 38-36 victory.

“Ellen (Langlinais) is such a great player,” Ashailee Brailey said. “She does all the little things right and that’s why we won this game because the little things were done.”

Coach Guidry shared a similar sentiment to Brailey’s thoughts.

“It was a great team effort,” Head Coach Kim Guidry said. “We haven’t been challenged like that all year, and it was good to see the girls step up and do what needed to be done. Win or lose, this was a game we can look
back on and say we learned a lot from it.”

Katie Frith led the way in scoring for the Lady Eagles with a team and game high 13 points.

Kaylen Collins and Ashailee Brailey were not far behind, scoring 11 and nine respectively.

Ellen Langlinais and Leah Camel rounded out the scoring for the Lady Eagles with four and two.

Andy Bullard
Sports Editor