Dominican wins second straight Sugar Bowl basketball title

WESTWEGO – Playing without star sophomore Grace Hamblin, Dominican appear to be a wounded animal.

Think again.

Dominican dominated from start to finish, never trailing in a convincing 41-29 victory over South Lafourche in the Girls Silver Bracket championship game of the Allstate Sugar Bowl Classic Saturday at the Alario Center, capturing the Silver Bracket title for the second straight year.

A year ago as a freshman, Hamblin was the tournament Most Valuable Player. This time, she watched from the bench with a knee injury in enthusiastic fashion as junior Kylie Barre’ took control.

Barre’ finished with 14 points, four rebounds, three blocks and an assist to earn Most Valuable Player honors.

“I feel overwhelmed,” Barre’ said. “I’m really proud of my team right now and I owe everything to them. Everyone has stepped up in Grace’s absence. Everyone had a big part in this win and in the whole tournament and we stepped up. One of our main goals was to defend and rebound and we did so. It feels great to be the MVP. It’s awesome. I can’t put words to it.”

Dominican jumped out to a 7-0 lead to start the game and led 13-4 at the end of the first quarter behind six points from Barre’. Dominican led 18-11 by halftime and maintained a 33-22 edge through three quarters.

The Lady Tarpons got within 10 points at 35-25 but never drew any closer in the final quarter.

Ahjah Yunusah added eight points and eight rebounds for Dominican (16-3) while Sydney Sherman had nine points and four rebounds. Makayla Bynum topped South Lafourche (15-6) with eight points.

“We love coming to this tournament,” Dominican coach Ryan Reuter said. “We’ve had a rough stretch over the last two and a half weeks. We really haven’t been playing well. We were squeezing out a few wins but we finally played well here. Our defense stepped up after being inconsistent. Our defense was really good today. We are figuring out how we need to play and we are improving.”

Final
Dominican 13 5 15 8 41
S. Lafourche 4 7 11 7 29

Scoring
Dominican
Kylie Barre’ 14, Sydney Sherman 9, Ahjah Yunusah 8, Kate Baker 5, Emily Adams 3, Allison Tullier 2

South Lafourche
Makayla Bynum 8, Sierra Lerille 6, Bre’ylynn Jackson 6, Madison Ryan 4, Abbi Collins 3, Abigail Bouzigard 2

Rebounds
Dominican 28, South Lafourche 20

Turnovers
Dominican 15, South Lafourche 11