By DAVE WOODALL
Slidell sports writer
SLIDELL – Both the Salmen girls’ and boys’ basketball teams made good last Thursday night at home with big wins over quality opponents.
The girls team posted an impressive 66-41 victory against the Cabrini Crescents.
Allie Batiste and Ashanti Eden each had 19 points to lead all scorers.
Jaylen Huderson contributed 12, followed by Arianna Cooks with eight and Jayla Faciane with six.
Salmen (9-4) went on a 14-0 run in the first period before Cabrini’s Brione Woods made a free throw to put the Crescents on the board.
The Crescents went without a field goal in the first period and got their first bucket in the second by Kai Williams after another 14-0 run by Salmen to start the second half.
The Lady Spartans went on to outscore Cabrini 41-24 in the second half to coast to the win.
Salmen held their turnovers to a minimum giving up the ball only 10 time in the game.
Cabrini wasn’t as fortunate creating 23 miscues that in most cases turned into points for Salmen.
The Spartans also shot the lights out hitting 27-of-56 shots (48%) to Cabrini’s 14-of-66 (21%).
“We’ve been focusing on making our layups but we are still having trouble early in making them,” said Lady Spartan coach Panos Bountovinas.
Lady Spartan point guard Batiste had five three-pointers in the game and had these comments.
“I started to get open shots so I just took my time and started taking them.”
Woods led the Crescents with 17.
For the boys’, Salmen (10-6) was forced to come from behind early after missing their first eight shots.
But after trailing 14-4 at the end of the first period, the Spartans settled down to take a well-deserved 62-52 victory at home against the Destrehan Wildcats (5-9).
Keith Sandrock led the Spartans with 22 points while Reese Klein contributed 14.
Deitrick Stovall had 13 points which included 9-of-12 from the free throw line. Cameron Vickers added 10 with Corey Holmes and Kyran Donaldson each with two.
Destrehan’s Devin Edwards hit three, three-pointers to jump ahead early but Vickers drove the baseline for a layup to get Salmen on the board.
Sandrock and Klein both found the range and began to make a difference.
Sandrock hit seven and Klein hit two treys to narrow the Destrehan lead to 25-21 at the half.
The Spartans went on a 9-0 run in the third but the Wildcats kept it close with a pair of J.R. Blood treys to pull to within 35-33.
But that would be a close as they would get as Salmen went on to outscore the Wildcats 41-27 in the half to take the win.
“They hurt us in the first five minutes with their outside shooting against our zone,” Salmen coach Jay Carlin said. “But once we went man-to-man we forced some turnovers and got back in rhythm. I thought we finished the game clean tonight and the boys have been working hard on it and they are getting better all the time. We shot the ball well from the free throw line tonight. When the right guys get to the line we have a chance to be pretty good. In periods two, three and four I thought we looked like a pretty good basketball team.”