Delta Charter boys drop two at Rayville Tournament

Published 4:05 pm Friday, December 17, 2021

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RAYVILLE, La. — After winning three straight games, the Delta Charter School Storm have now dropped two in a row after falling to Bastrop High School last Thursday night and General Trass High School last Wednesday night at the Rayville Tournament.

Delta Charter was hoping to bounce back from a tough loss to General Trass with a win over LHSAA Class 4A Bastrop High School. Unfortunately, that was not meant to be as the Rams defeated the Class 1A Storm 56-36.

Storm head coach Ronald Ellis said he felt like his players had already had Bastrop beat in warm-ups, but realized they had underestimated the Rams. It showed in the early stages of the game as Bastrop jumped out to a 24-12 lead over Delta Charter by the end of the first quarter.

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“We were going through the motions. This team wasn’t even close to being as good as the first team we played (General Trass),” Ellis said. “We played a better team and lost by two.” 

The last three quarters were more competitive, but the Storm was unable to get anything going offensively. They were held to 10 points in the second quarter, eight in the third quarter, and a mere six points in the fourth quarter.

“There was no energy. Bad preparation mentally. They beat us bad,” Ellis said.

Jalen Ellis led the Storm with 11 points and Ronald Ellis Jr. had nine points. The Rams were led by Miguel Wilson with a game-high 18 points and Kyron Williams had 12 ponts.

Delta Charter (5-6) looked to get back to its winning ways in its finale at the Rayville Tournament when it took on Tensas High School Saturday afternoon.

General Trass boys 69, Delta Charter 67 (Wed. night)

RAYVILLE, La. — Delta Charter School came oh so close to rallying from an early double-digit deficit, but in the end the Storm lost to the General Trass High School Panthers 69-67 in their first game at the Rayville Tournament.

General Trass dominated Delta Charter on both ends of the court throughout the first quarter and by quarter’s end had a 22-10 lead. The Storm responded by outscoring the Panthers 19-13 in the second quarter to trail by just six points, 35-29, at halftime.

“Turnovers. And the big guy, we had to figure him out,” Ellis said. “They had a big guy and we had to adjust to him. But turnovers killed us.”

The Panthers did enough to make sure the Storm would not continue to cut into their lead in the third quarter. General Trass put up 20 points while Delta Charter scored 17 points for a 55-46 Panthers lead. The Storm outscored the Panthers 21-14 in the fourth quarter, but ran out of time and the comeback fell a little bit short.

What allowed Delta Charter to get back in the game was fewer turnovers. Ellis said once that happened, the game turned in the Storm’s favor.

“We had two or three chances to win the game, but we turned the ball over. It was a good game. We came all the way back, though,” Ellis said. “They had a good press. We were pressing too much. We had to slow down a little bit. We have a bunch of ninth- and 10th-graeders. They wanted to go fast the whole time.”

Ronald Ellis Jr led the Storm with 25 points to go with six rebounds, five assists and three steals. Jestin Garrison added 17 points and four steals while Amir Cooper had a solid game with eight points, seven rebounds and four assists.

Cooper, Ellis Jr., Garrison and Tyrin Singleton each made two 3-pointers, but as a team, the Storm was just 9-for-24 from behind the 3-point line. Another key factor was the lack of free throws. Delta Charter attempted just four free throws and made just two of them.