Lady Wildcats on road to face No. 2 Ville Platte

The Abbeville Lady Wildcats will begin their quest for a cinderella finish to the season when they travel to play the No. 2 ranked team in Class 3A Ville Platte.
Abbeville (16-12, 5-5) finished the season with a two-game losing streak, with losses to North Vermilion and Notre Dame.
Heading into the final week of the regular season the Lady Wildcats were ranked No. 31 and after losing the final two games, head coach Summer Campbell still believed her team would be one of the final 32 teams.
“I rode on faith this whole season,” Campbell said. “I told the girls that if they spoke it into existence it would happen. The hardest thing was getting them to believe in everything. I’m glad we made the playoffs, but I really never thought we wouldn’t make it, I didn’t have that doubt in me.”
Waiting for Abbeville tonight is No. 2 Ville Platte (26-4, 10-0). The Lady Bulldogs are a year removed from a state championship game appearance, where they lost to University High.
Ville Platte is a member of District 5-3A with fellow playoff teams: No. 17 Northwest, No. 20 Port Barre and No. 29 Livonia.
The Lady Bulldogs have an athletic squad, and the Lady Wildcats will have to try to stop UALR signee Deja Mckinney and sophomore Tyreonna Doucet. Mckinney averaged 20 points per game last year as a junior.
“This team (Ville Platte) is athletic, and their gym is smaller than Notre Dame’s,” Campbell said. “We are not going to press, because they are more athletic than us. I think it would be to our advantage to play a zone defense against them.”
On their way to a 26-4 record, Ville Platte has beaten some formidable playoff teams.
They beat the No. 1 seed in 1A North Central 52-49, the No. 7 seed in Class 4A Rayne 51-48 and the No. 14 seed in 4A Northside 54-46.
With the production of Ville Platte’s duo at a high level, Campbell said she will take a different approach defensively to try to contain Ville Platte.
“Athletically, a zone would be the best way to go for us because you have a team, a united front down low and up top,” she said. “With their key players, we might run a triangle-and-2. I like to take players out of the game mentally. That’s where everything is. If you take a team’s key players out of the game, the team will fall apart.”
The game is scheduled to start at 6:30 tonight at Ville Platte High School.