HAMMOND, La. (WGNO) — Almost one year ago, John Curtis’s hopes of a seventh consecutive state title were crushed by Lafayette here in Hammond. Saturday, the Patriots restored their championship standard with a 62-46 win over Woodlawn. They accepted the Golden Trophy in a manner expected from a program that’s been a regular in the championship spotlight.
“If you see a slogan at John Curtis, you pass by the school is building champions for life, and we do that. That’s a school thing for every sport. Every student that goes there believes in that. Whether that’s on the court playing a sport, or academically, anything that we’re involved in, we want to do our best and always strive to continue being successful,” said Lady Patriots head coach Alendra Brown.
“I’m not satisfied. I got two more years,” said sophomore Chikae Desdunes.
“It’s more of a pride thing to be honest. We got to take pride in John Curtis. Everybody knows we’re a basketball school. So, at this point, we expected to be here,” added senior Imani Daniel.
John Curtis returned to the top of Division I Select thanks to a stellar defensive effort in Saturday’s championship game. The Patriots held the Panthers to 29% shooting, scoring 20 points off the 19 turnovers they forced. John Curtis’s Jayla Albert led all scorers with 20 points, while Imani Daniel added a 17-point,10-rebound double-double. She was named most outstanding player.
“The girls knew their assignments. They knew what to do. They knew where to go and they communicated to each other. I seen a lot of times they knew who was on the ball. They knew who was in help side. If it wasn’t the communicating, they got there, and they finished with the box out,” Brown continued.
“We all talked about 50/50 balls this year. We mostly just tried to control what we can control. We had a lot of fouls, so we just had to slow down on the fouls, slow our defense down, our offense down. You just take control over the game,” Daniel added.
Daniel is the only senior on the 2024 championship team. The rest of the roster will be back next season.
Click the video above to watch highlights from the game and hear from Brown and the players.
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