Matt Vines

MANSFIELD – With its surge in district play, Mansfield is the only DeSoto Parish girls basketball team who will be at home for the first round of the playoffs.

The Division III No. 10 seed Lady Wolverines will host No. 23 Berwick on Thursday at 6 p.m.

North DeSoto and Logansport missed out on a home playoff game by the slimmest of margins.

Both the Lady Griffins and Lady Tigers are No. 17 seeds in their respective classes.

NDHS, who missed a Division II home game by 0.10 power points, will head to No. 17 North Vermilion on Thursday at 5 p.m. It is the first playoff appearance for North DeSoto since 2003.

Logansport, who missed a Division IV home game by just 0.02 power points, will travel to No. 17 Kentwood. The Lady Tigers will play Thursday at 6 p.m.

Mansfield (19-8) captured a share of the District 3-2A title by going 9-1 in district play. The Lady Wolverines split with co-champion Lakeview, winning the second matchup 40-38.

The Lady Wolverines have gone 19-4 since an 0-4 start.

Defense has always been the calling card of veteran coach Kendra Neal-Jones, and the Lady Wolverines have leaned on that toughness to excel.

“Our defense and discipline have been key down the stretch,” Neal-Jones said. “We’ve been executing better offensively and staying with what we do well – playing tough on the defensive end.”

Mansfield lost in the first round in 2023 but advanced to the quarterfinals in 2022, with three players from that squad still on the team. Neal-Jones won the 2019 Class 2A state championship and has made other Top 28 appearances in 2014 and 2015.

Mansfield’s opponent Berwick has also won 19 games, but many of those wins came against teams in lower classifications. Berwick went just 2-6 in District 8-3A play.

For North DeSoto (19-7), the Lady Griffins went 4-3 in District 1-4A play. NDHS dominated teams in the bottom half of the league, but a 27-point loss at Northwood and an 8-point loss at Minden were costly in terms of securing a home playoff game.

Arguably the most costly recent loss was to Logansport, a 41-35 defeat back in early January.

North DeSoto catches a North Vermilion squad (13-12) that’s lost six of its last seven games, including a district that has powers Lafayette Christian, Northside and St. Thomas More.

Its North DeSoto win wasn’t quite enough to lift Logansport (10-11) into a home playoff game.

The Lady Tigers went just 2-6 in a stacked District 3-1 slate. Oddly enough, Logansport handed second-place LaSalle one of its only two losses on the season. Conversely, St. Mary’s only two district wins came against Logansport, the second one in overtime.

Logansport’s last playoff win came in 2021 when the Lady Tigers went to the Class 1A quarterfinals.