LAKE CHARLES, La. — No. 3 Ponchatoula defeated No. 1 New Iberia, 63-48 in the Division I Non-Select state championship game Saturday night at Burton Coliseum.
The win gives the Green Wave boy’s basketball program its first state title in program history.
“I’m glad we got to play them because beating the number one team has been number one all year, it makes me feel like we have definitely earned this thing,” says Ponchatoula head basketball coach Tom Taylor.
The Green Wave took a 28-22 lead into the half, and would lean on a second half surge to put top-ranked NISH away. Ponchatoula outscored New Iberia 14-11 in the third quarter, and 21-15 in the final frame.
Allen Graves was named the Most Outstanding Player with a stellar 23-point, 16-rebound performance in the win.
“The work that I’ve put in throughout these years with my brother and him being a college athlete and my sister being a college athlete. Just being able to train with them and have the advantages that I do. Just to be able to go to a practice of a college team and just watch how it runs and just being able to put the work in like a college player. I feel like it helps me at the high school level to be able to play on another level of basketball,” says Ponchatoula junior Allen Graves.
The x-factor was senior shooting guard Trey Parham, who added 16 points on 54% shooting. Parham was 6/11 from the field, 4/9 from beyond the arc.
“We call him Trigger because he’s a trigger man. He can hit it. Trey started out the season, went to a slump and he got into it and look at the last 10-12 games he has been hitting two, three threes at crucial times to start the game to put this quarterfinal game to bed. He had a couple against Ruston and and then tonight it was just it was his goal and he kept on shooting and I said, man, just do it until the until the buzzer goes off,” says Taylor.
Ponchatoula graduates four seniors, but returns three starters and several rotational pieces next season.