FERRIDAY &8212; Even Ferriday head boys&8217; coach James Davis is having to adjust to his own change of pace.

It&8217;s time to work on offense.

Catching the Trojans&8217; head man talking up offense to his club is almost like catching snowflakes in the Miss-Lou. It won&8217;t happen often. But for a team that&8217;s relied so much on its defense that people are starting to discover possible weak points, the Trojans have to get better on that end of the floor.

Because good teams won&8217;t give them opportunities to create baskets off turnovers. The Trojans will get a chance this weekend at their own tournament starting tonight at the Ferriday gym.

&8220;I think my biggest concern right now is we&8217;ve got to be more consistent in our half-court offensive set,&8221; said Davis, whose club will get a bye in the tournament and play Friday. &8220;We&8217;re playing well. I really thinkg we&8217;re coming along now. We&8217;re starting to do the things we&8217;re teaching them to do, and it&8217;s making a difference defense-wise and offense-wise. Defense has been the big part of why we&8217;re 9-1 right now.&8221;

So far the Trojans have gotten their points off turnovers and beating the other team down the floor, but lately on the offensive end teams have thrown more 2-3 zones at them than anything else.

It&8217;s put pressure on Ferriday to try and shoot the other team out of that zone, but that doesn&8217;t happen every night without a pure shooter from the perimeter. The Trojans also lack that strong center, which also makes it tough to get it inside.

But it&8217;s all about penetrating that zone and being patient, and that&8217;s what Davis is spending more and more time preaching.

&8220;The first couple of ball games we weren&8217;t able to do that,&8221; he said. &8220;Every team we&8217;ve played has been a zone, and they never play us man until they have to. I know the reason why &8212; they don&8217;t feel they can match up defensively with a man. That&8217;s what we&8217;re constantly working on in practice &8212; that doggone zone. Maybe that will get us over the hump.&8221;

The scoring has come mainly from Eric Crump and LaDerrick Metcalf, but the offense has been more spread out this season than in the past. Their only loss came early in the season in an overtime loss at Jefferson County, and Davis feels that got his club&8217;s attention real quick.

But like that game and others since then, the defense was the engine that drove the train. And it&8217;s very seldom of the full-court variety. What you&8217;ll get mostly is a good, old-fashioned half-court man that doesn&8217;t give you much room to work.

As long as that works, then they&8217;ll focus the attention on the offense.

&8220;We preach defense,&8221; Davis said. &8220;We spend more time on defense than offense. We figure offense will come along. We&8217;ve got to get stop from those opponents. If we don&8217;t stop anybody, we&8217;re not going to win. We&8217;ve got some scrappy guys on defense, and the bench has been coming in and doing a tremendous job.&8221;

With the Lady Trojans, they&8217;ll also take off tonight with Friday&8217;s game against the winner of the Sicily Island-Davidson game. When they do take the floor, they&8217;ll welcome senior Jameca Garrison, who will play her first game of the season after being suspended for breaking a team rule.

Lady Trojans head coach Lisa Abron said she&8217;ll ease Garrison back in slowly while Kiawanna McDowell will continue to play the point.

&8220;That should help us out a lot,&8221; Abron said. &8220;She gets things going on defense. (McDowell) has stepped in, took over and done a nice job of it. I&8217;m still a little worried about the kind of defense we&8217;ve been playing. It&8217;s not as aggressive as I would like it to be, but it&8217;ll get better.&8221;

So far the Lady Trojans are 9-1 with two tournament titles under their belts with a third one in mind. While Garrison has been out, the team has relied on freshman Jasmine Upchurch underneath for scoring and a defensive presence on the opposite end of the floor.

Also today is the Carroll tournament in Monroe, La., where Natchez High&8217;s Lady Bulldogs will square off against West Monroe at 6 p.m. It&8217;s a chance for the team to shake off a week of exams and try to end a three-game skid after lasting winning Nov. 29 against Jefferson County.

&8220;We&8217;re getting it together,&8221; NHS head coach Sue Johnson said. &8220;Hopefully we&8217;ll have a good showing against West Monroe and get our confidence up. We&8217;ll keep on battling until we get it together. Mental errors cost us that (loss to Forest Hill). We were flat-out not moving on defense.&8221;