Friday the 13th proved lucky once again for one of Louisiana’s traditional powers, which ended a three-decade drought against a fitting opponent and in emphatic fashion.
No. 1 Lincoln Prep (30-3), the former Grambling Lab, seized control from longtime postseason rival No. 6 Southern Lab (16-13) with a first-half run, then exploded in the third quarter to blow open a 69-42 in the Division-IV Select title game.
The championship is the program’s first since 1992 and the first under its new name, finally getting back over the hump after two runner-up finishes and three other semifinal appearances in the previous six years.
“It’s bigger than what you may know,” coach Antonio Hudson, who played for Grambling Lab’s last runner-up team in 2022 before heading to LSU, told the LHSAA Network. “I was talking to coach (Michael) Lyons’ son, Jermanus, last night. The last championship was won Friday, March 13, 1992, exactly 34 years to the day. And what a way to do it against Southern Lab, which is a great team with a great coach, man. But the city, the community, these players, they deserve this, man.”
The Panthers led wire-to-wire, stretched their lead to double-digits with a run highlighted by 3-pointers by sophomore Jabari Levingston and senior Joseph “Trey” Spann III to close the first quarter and open the second and then removed all doubt with an 18-6 third quarter.
Hudson was particularly pleased with the defensive effort, holding Southern Lab to its sixth-lowest scoring output of the season and its lowest against a fellow Class 1A opponent.
“We’ve been terrific defensively all year,” the coach said. “We wanted to keep the total points in the four (playoff) games under 130 and keep teams from getting over 40. I think Lab got 42 and another team got 42, but other than that it’s defensively, and they would work, man. Even when they didn’t want to. Even when I would put my foot in their back and upset ’em at time. They would still just continue to trust the process and continue to work.
“This is the fifth year that we’ve been down here. Trey’s been down here since he was in eighth grade. And for him to finally leave out with one and Zion (Hicks) and Kaden Vernon, it’s just big, man. It’s big.”
Stout as the defense was, Lincoln Prep excelled in impressive fashion on both ends of the court.
Levingston’s and Spann’s 28 and 16 points, respectively, led an efficient offensive performance — staggering 68.8% and 86.4% marks as a team from the floor and from inside the arc — to the Panthers’ sixth-highest scoring total of the season and the fourth-highest allowed by Southern Lab and most by the Kittens to a Class 1A opponent.
Levingston, the multisport sophomore star, earned MVP honors with his impressive inside-outside scoring — 8-for-12 from the floor and 2-for-4 from deep — as well as four assists, three rebounds and a steal.
“(Spann) has been here since his eighth-grade year, five years in a row, so I knew I had to put the team on my back and help him get one and help the rest of the team get one also,” said Levingston, who scored 35 in the team’s semifinal win Tuesday, the most by any player thus far in this week’s tournament. “The mentality, the game plan, the work we put in. We trusted coach Hud, and the things we did in practice we did in the game, and it helped in the long run.”
Spann finished 6-for-8, including 1-for-3 from beyond the arc, in his final high school game with six rebounds, three assists and two steals.
And fellow senior Hicks added 12 points on 4-for-4 from the floor and 4-for-5 from the foul line with a game-high nine rebounds, two steals and an assist.
“Grambling is just everything to me,” Hudson said. “It took a little kid like me and turned him into a basketball player. I was able to go play at LSU and all those things like that. But people don’t know the struggles that the school has been through. We almost closed. We didn’t have anywhere to practice, anywhere to play. We were housing kids and doing our school in portable buildings. But we were resilient, and we continued to fight. And that’s just kind of what this team has showed: just the resiliency and the community.
“We continued to fight, and the community deserves it. Thirty years without a championship. And to finally get one is just amazing.”
Senior guard James King led a young Southern Lab squad with 14 points, three rebounds and two assists.
Eighth-grade forward Ramaj Flowers had nine points, three rebounds and a steal, and senior guard Kendall Johnson added six points, a team-high five rebounds, two assists and a steal.
