Mount Carmel captures first basketball championship

Winning state championships is hardly an anomaly at Mount Carmel, as the pyramid of plaques displayed in the school gymnasium’s lobby will attest.

But a new one has been added – the elusive Class 5A girls’ basketball championship trophy, which the Cubs claimed on March 8 by defeating Destrehan, 69-60, in the LHSAA State Tournament in Lake Charles.

Destrehan had lost just once in 32 games until the Lady Cats faced No. 9 seed MCA in the championship game at Burton Coliseum. But an
expected coronation for the favored public school became an agonizing setback as the Cubs systematically out-ran, out-shot, out-rebounded and out-defensed their opponent to win going away.

Mount Carmel teams of the past (in 1995 and 2007) made it as far as the semifinals before being eliminated.

Remarkably, the Cubs rose to the top of their class by coming out of a small and generally weak district.

Although their Catholic League rivals – Dominican and Archbishop Chapelle – have been basketball powers in recent years, neither of the two had a break-even record. And Mount Carmel played each one three times, hardly breaking a sweat in runaway wins.

Consequently, head coach and athletic director Panos Bountovinas arranged a competitive non-district schedule of games, which accounted for the Cubs’ six losses against playoff-caliber opponents.

The defeats came against Class 4A champion Salmen, 4A runner-up Warren Easton (twice), 3A runner-up John Curtis (twice) and 4A quarterfinalist Edna Karr.

They proved to be lessons well learned.

Although her Destrehan squad came into the championship game with a 29-1 record and on a 27-game win streak, head coach Angi Butler admonished her players about taking the Cubs lightly.

“I told them that just because Mount Carmel is a bunch of little white girls, don’t think they can’t play,” she said in a post-game press conference.

Butler’s warning followed the Cubs’ defeat of Denham Springs, 70-52, in the semifinal round on March 6. That runaway victory set the tone for the finals.

Both finalists were beneficiaries of early-round upsets.

No. 17 Pineville eliminated the tournament’s top seed, Ouachita, 57-54, in the Feb. 24 regional round at home.

On that same night, No. 2 West Monroe was beaten by Helen Cox, 49-35, in the favorite’s gym.

Mount Carmel then punched its ticket to the tournament by edging Pineville, 50-48, and Destrehan eliminated Cox, 70-57, in the semis.

The Cubs’ deadly outside shooting accounted for 18 3-pointers, but the fast break, led by sophomore guard Kristen Nuss, who had nine assists, triggered the offensive show.

Senior guard Jennifer Clark led the scoring with 22 points and was named the 5A Outstanding Player.

Junior wing Taylor Berry contributed nine points in the final period in an 18-point performance, and sophomore Paige Franckiewicz’s long jumpers were a zone-breaker.