A year’s worth of thrilling games, fantastic finishes, gutty efforts, upsets, and yes, even disappointing losses was packed into a week’s worth of games involving local girls and boys high school basketball teams. After all the dust had settled, the chances for a district championship looked better for some and not so good for others. Below is a summary of games for Weston, Quitman, Saline, and Jonesboro-Hodge along with boxscores from each. 

Weston High School

Buzzer Beater leaves Lady Wolves in control of District 1B

Lexie Millien drained a buzzer-beating, three-pointer to put the finishing touches on an improbable 59-58 comeback victory to lift Weston over home-standing Castor this past Tuesday in the battle of district 1B frontrunners. On Friday, the Lady Wolves had no trouble in dispatching Doyline 60-37 to vault the Lady Wolves to 4-0 in district 1B play and 26-5 overall. 
Won in a Millien! There is not a young round baller that hasn’t done it. You act like you are in a packed gymnasium in front of thousands of screaming fans. Not only are you the player but the game announcer too.
“Time is winding down, Five! Four! Three!” you say as you take a shot at the goal.
“The shot goes up! It’s Good! It’s Good! It’s Good! WE WIN! WE WIN!”
You can bet Millien has acted out the above scenario countless times. She will never have to play make-believe again though. Now, she has lived the dream! With Weston trailing 58-56, Millien took a pass at the top of the key with three seconds to play. STOP! POP! SWISH!!!!! GAME OVER!
Frantic Finish! Weston looked to be out of it after a late third-quarter run by Castor gave them a 47-37 lead after three quarters.  Digging deep, Weston responded with a frantic 22-11 fourth quarter led by six points by Jessica Newton, five from Millien, and four each by Briley Peterson and Emma Kate McBride to close the gap to 58-56, setting up Millien’s last-second heroics.
First Five Fantastic! For the first time all year, the starting five scored every single point in the contest, with four reaching double figures in points. Millien, who added a team-high five steals, and Jessica Newton finished with “double-double” stat lines of 16 pts / 10 rbs and 12 pts / 16 rbs, respectively. Briley Peterson came up just short of being a third ‘double bagger” ending with a team-high 17 points and contributing 9 boards. Lainee Trosclair added ten points and Emma Kate McBride chipped in with four points, six boards, three assists, and four blocks, tying her with Newton for the team lead.

TEAM	1	2	3	4	TOTAL
Weston	19	8	10	22	59
Castor	12	23	12	11	58

Lady Wolves 60 Doyline 37 (Friday) Weston shot Doyline off the court in the first quarter by making five 3-pointers, including three on the first three shots to take a commanding lead 17-4 lead that ballooned to 41- 22 by the end of three. The Lady Wolves would end the game with nine treys. Briley Peterson was the leading scorer with 15 points, followed by 13 from Lainee Trosclair and 10 by Jessica Newton who added a season-best and career-high 20 rebounds to go along with five blocks. Emma Kate McBride finished with 9, Lexie Millien had seven and Anslee Aldy scored six. 

TEAM	1	2	3	4	TOTAL
Weston	17	9	15	19	60
Doyline	4	9	9	15	37

Wolves drop 20th of the year

The “|second season” swoon continued for the beleagured Weston boys team that lost to Castor 63-52 and Doyline 85-52 to extend their district 1B losing streak to four straight without a victory. By dropping their ninth game in the eleven played since the calendar rolled over to 2023 the Wolves were saddled with their 20th loss of the year for the first time since the 2011-12 season against only nine wins.  

TEAMS	1	2	3	4	TOTAL
Weston	15	7	9	24	53
Castor	12	17	18	16	63

TEAM	1	2	3	4	TOTAL
Weston	10	14	17	11	52
Doyline	25	25	20	15	85

Quitman High School

Boys feel the highest of highs and lowest of lows

In what was easily the best win of the year, QHS climbed to the top of 1B mountain after round one of district play by upsetting Doyline 48-47 on Tuesday only to misfire down the stretch and suffer a demoralizing 60-57 loss to Castor on Friday, whom they had beaten just ten days earlier. The split of games left Quitman with a 16-11 overall record and tied with Doyline atop the 1B standings at 3-1. Castor moved within one game at 2-2.
QHS 48 Doyline 47: (Thursday)The contest featured one of the best scorers in north Louisiana this season. Instead, Gavyn Caskey, who had as good a week as any player in the state, stole the show. Caskey nailed six of eight 3-pointers, including four in the final frame to finish with 18 points to help Quitman rally from a 38-34 deficit after three periods,. Meanwhile “Juicy” Clark from Doyline, who scored 70 points in a contest earlier in the year and came in averaging over 30 points a game, managed only 19 points before fouling out.  While Caskey was connecting on 6 of 9 shots in all for his best scoring game of the year the rest of the Wolverines struggled to make only 12 of 49 from the field and just 3 of 18 from behind the arc. Free throw shooting was just as bad at 3 of  9 and almost cost Quitman as on three straight trips late in the game the Wolverines missed the front end of a one and, while holding on to the slim one-point lead. 

TEAM	1	2	3	4	TOTAL
Quitman	12	12	10	14	48
Doyline	2	16	20	9	47

Castor 60 Quitman 57 (Friday) Missing free throws didn’t hurt QHS against Doyline. Against Castor it killed them. Holding a 57-54 lead late in the fourth quarter, QHs missed the front end of a one-and-one twice, while Castor made both of theirs and added two more baskets to slip by with the win. One night after setting a new season best, Gavyn Caskey did it again in both points (20) and in made three-pointers with seven. Logan Ponder added six three-pointers resulting in a team-high 23 points in the contest that saw Quitman shoot better from behind the arc (44%) than they did from the field (34%). 

TEAM	1	2	3	4	TOTAL
Quitman	16	17	8	16	57
Castor	23	15	8	14	60

Lady Wolverines get offensive

Started from the bottom now I’m here. That could be the theme song for the Lady Wolverines this past week as by equaling their season high in points in back-to-back games Quitman evened their district record at 2-2 and moved to within one game of the  20-win mark at 19-8 overall foir the first time in four seasons.  

Quitman 66 Doyline24 (Tuesday) The Lady Wolverines dominated Doyline in the first and third periods by a combined score of 39-4 and despite not scoring in the fourth quarter still equaled their season best in points to win by over 40 points for their first district 1B victory of the year. Coming to grips with the fact that senior point guard Bethany Leach was most likely lost for the year, QHS dug deep to pick up the slack, as five players finished in double figures led by Cali Deal with 23. points. Summer Grillette continued her late scoring spree by adding 11 followed by Brayli Stewart, Emma Carter, and 8th grader Anna Leach who has stepped in admirably in place of her namesake. 

TEAM	1	2	3	4	TOTAL
Quitman	18	27	21	0	66
Doyline	2	17	2	3	24

Quitman 66 Castor 58:(Friday) Cali Deal hit 17 of 21 free throws leading to a career-high 31 points while also grabbing 11 rebounds to lead QHS to a repeat performance of tying their season high in points. Anna Leach also scored a career-high finishing with 15 points, the fourth time in the last five games the 8th grader has reached double figures in scoring. As a team, Quitman made 14 of 15 from the charity stripe in the first half to build a 32-22 lead.  

TEAM	1	2	3	4	TOTAL
Quitman	13	19	20	14	66
Castor	11	11	23	13	58

Saline High School

Girls secure tie for district 2C title

Saline 66 Georgetown 64 (OT): Alaya Gray made a last second basket to send the game into overtime and with twins Alaya and Alana on the bench with five fouls each, Kasidy Sims and Sydney Thomas both scored four points in overtime to give Saline the win after trailing 47-36 at the end of three.Sims set a new career high with 20 points followed by the Gray twins Alaya and Alana Gray added 10. 

TEAM	1	2	3	4	OT	TOTAL
Saline	11	11	14	22	8	66
Georgetown	9	17	21	10	4	63

Saline 50 Calvin 37: The reversal of the seasons fortune is remarkable. After 12 games to start the season Saline was sitting with a 1-11 record. Write this one off, right? Oh,  how wrong can you be. With Kacidy Sims scoring in double figures  in two straight games for the first time all season and both Gray girls hitting double digits, Saline improved their district mark to 6-0 and is just a win against 0-17 Central-Jonesville away from securing the title. 

TEAM	1	2	3	4	TOTAL
Saline	10	12	19	9	50
Calvin	2	7	10	18	37

Bobcats stay in range of district title

By beating Georgetown and Calvin on back to back nights the Saline boys stayed one game back of Atlanta but need some help in order to draw even with the Bulldogs. Regardless, the two victories moved the Bobcats season record to three games over .500 at 17-14 for the first time all season. 

Saline 56 Georgetown 42 (Thursday) Will Dison and freshman Gavin Dailey led a balanced scoring attack with 12 and 10 respectively and Wesley Crawford, back from a bad ankle injury scored all nine of his points in the first quarter as Saline methodically ripped Georgetown apart. DJ Rager- Ridley, who has had a big uptick in productioin as of late also had nine followed by Jacob Jones who was one point back with eight. Shawn Staggs and Maddox Williams finished iwth four. 

TEAM	1	2	3	4	TOTAL
Saline	16	10	21	9	56
Georgetown	9	9	18	6	42

Saline 56 Calvin 46 (Friday): Saline jumped all over the defending Class C state runnerup going up 20-3 by the end of the first quarter and never looking back. Wesley Crawford led 8 Bobcats who scored in the contest with 14 followed by late season sparkplug Gaavin Dailey who ended with 13 points. DJ Reager- Ridley added ten and Shawn Stagg eight. Jacob Jones finished with five and three other had two points each. 

TEAM	1	2	3	4	TOTAL
Saline	20	10	18	8	56
Calvin	3	14	15	14	46

Red River drowns JHHS boys 

The trip to Red River ended with the boy’s chances of staying in the upper echelon of the District 3-2A race getting all wet. The Tigers led 11-9 after one but by scoring only four points in the second fell behind 20-15 at intermission. It got worse in the second half as Red river flowed through the Tiger defense for 42 points while giving up only 27 to the Tigers in the 62-42 loss. Zion Gray scored 16 and Savantez Phillips added 14. No other JH player scored more than four in the game. 

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