Ferriday — The Ferriday High girls’ basketball team’s main scorer will not play in Thursday’s quarterfinal round of the LHSAA Class 2A State Playoffs.

Jasmine Upchurch will be on the bench to watch the No. 4-seed Lady Trojans take on No. 12-seed Oakdale because of a sore back.

Coach Lisa Abron said Upchurch’s back has given her problems all season, so they’re giving her a day of rest to make sure she doesn’t injure it further.

“She signed a scholarship to play college ball at Northwestern State in Natchitoches,” Abron said. “We don’t want to risk anything. Her career down the line is more important than this one game.”

The lack of Upchurch’s big presence down low will be a problem for the Lady Trojans, considering they’re taking on a team with a 6-foot-4-inch center.

No other Lady Trojan has the size to even come close to matching up to the Warriors’ height down low.

“She’s huge,” Abron said. “We’ll try to double-team her and try not to get her any looks. I know she’s going to get some shots because of her size, but we’ll try not to let her get as many as she’s used to.”

Abron said Oakdale’s other main scorer is its point guard, and Ferriday will put a player on her the whole game as well and hope the rest of the Lady Warriors struggle to pick up the slack.

“The other three usually clean up what those two miss,” she said. “They box out and get rebounds and put back the missed shots. We plan on making those three do most of the scoring and hope they have an off night.”

Oakdale upset No. 5-seed Evangel 41-38 in the regional round Monday after defeating No. 21 Lake Providence in the first round.

The winning teams from the quarterfinals automatically get a bid to the state tournament.

“They may be on a little high right now because of that win,” Abron said. “But this is the playoffs — anything can happen at this point. Nobody’s going to stop playing because you got a No. 5-seed or a No. 12 coming in. This is motivation.”

Ferriday struggled with turnovers in an overtime 64-63 win against Westminster Christian Monday, but Abron said while she stressed to her team the importance of taking care of the ball, she said she hasn’t harped on it too much.

Instead, the Lady Trojans have worked on consistent shooting to prepare for the 6:30 p.m. game in Oakdale, La.

“Somebody has got to get hot,” she said. “We’re going to rely on some outside shooting to get things going for us. We’re going to use our speed, our quickness and some good outside shooting to get a lead on them.”