Menard’s girls just finished an historic basketball season with a record-smashing senior scorer and rebounder named Meynard, and they achieved a mythical upset in the state semifinals. And what did their coach lose most sleep over through it all?
Their seeding for the playoffs.
As it turned out, getting a No. 4 seed rather than a No. 5 seed as Menard initially anticipated, was big. More than big. Huge. Menard and De La Salle of New Orleans tied for the coveted seed, and Menard won a complicated tiebreaker process for that seeding, and De La Salle was fifth.
“To have a quarterfinal game at home is huge,” said 60-year-old Menard coach Craig Whittington, who has 35 years in coaching at almost as many schools (just kidding). “In my book, a quarterfinal game at home gives you a 10-point advantage.”
After winning a district championship for their first time since the 2008 Lady Eagles shared the title, Menard received a first-round bye and then whipped Rapides, 56-23, in a Division III Select regional playoff.
Next up, the quarterfinals. At home.
Their opponent: De La Salle.
Last year, in Whittington’s first season as Menard’s coach, the Lady Eagles went to New Orleans for the quarterfinal round and lost to Academy of the Sacred Heart.
Flip the calendar to this year and Menard, playing before a rowdy packed house in its final home game, beat De La Salle, 47-32. The Lady Eagles’ reward for that victory was a trip to Marsh Madness at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond for the Division III Select Final Four.
The semifinal opponent: top-seeded, five-time state champion Lafayette Christian Academy. Menard had never won a girls basketball semifinal. Most recently, Menard lost in the semifinals in 2023 (against Episcopal-BR) and ’24 (Parkview Baptist).
Not only had the defending state champ, Lafayette Christian, won five straight state titles (in three different divisions) but eight of the last nine. As if awed to be playing on the same floor, Menard trailed by 16 at halftime and by 18 early in the second half. Then, something magical happened. Not all at once, but gradually, methodically.
The Lady Eagles cut the lead to 10 and played defense as if they were pick-pockets in a Dickens novel, consistently preventing LCA from scoring while whittling away its lead. Senior sensation Carly Meynard, whose mother, Tara Meher, is Whittington’s cousin, compiled 29 points and 8 rebounds, LCA missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer and Menard pulled off the biggest upset of the tournament with a 45-43 triumph.
Whittington, who won four state titles coaching at University Academy when it was affiliated with LSUA, came close last Friday to getting a fifth. Sixth if you count the state title, he was part of as an assistant to Robert Flowers (later a Menard girls coach) at Glenmora in 2005.
And Coach Whittington, in his two seasons at Menard, by necessity, had to shift from the up-tempo style he had coached at all his previous stops – at Bayou Chicot, Glenmora, Pine Prairie, University Academy (which since merged with Alexandria Country Day), and Sacred Heart of Ville Platte.
“Our team depth was not what it needs to be at that caliber of play,” Whittington said of the playoffs, where he played five players – all seniors – for most of the games, although having 13 eligible players on the roster. They needed to emphasize ball control, milking the clock and defense.
It worked for four quarters in the finale, with Menard leading by small margins most of the way. With Whittington’s 93-year-old father and 84-year-old mother in attendance, the Lady Eagles stayed out of foul trouble, controlled the tempo offensively, and, thanks to playing mostly zone defense, kept their legs fresh in the last four minutes.
Meanwhile, the 5-foot-11 Meynard, who has committed to play collegiately for Loyola-New Orleans, nearly propelled Menard to the win, scoring 18 points and grabbing 20 rebounds.
It seemed to be the game of a lifetime, reaching deep within herself to will her team to victory, but two days later Carly said, “I think I always play like that, giving all my effort, and going out and doing my thing.” The girl whose role model growing up was NBA legend Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers because he had a “dog mentality” and “never gave up,” extended her game to the max.
And it was like that every game she played.
She averaged 28 points and 13 rebounds a game this season. She scored 2,282 points in her high school career while snaring 1,686 rebounds – both school records. As a sophomore, she became the first Menard player to achieve 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds in the same season. She will be playing in the LHSAA’s East-West All-Star Game at LCU on March 21.
In the summer before her junior season, she developed a cyst on her spine that sidelined her – and made walking difficult – until November – in time to resume play for the start of the season. Yet, she has dealt with back spasms during competition since.
In the ultimate game, Rosepine tied it at game’s end to force an overtime.
That was one extra period too much.
Rosepine outscored Menard 9-1 in overtime to win its third state title in four years and become one of three Vernon Parish teams (along with Pitkin and Simpson) to return home with a state championship trophy.
Yet, Menard’s first outright district girls basketball title since ’01-02 and its first venture to the state finals – powered by Meynard and fellow seniors Kaylee Methvin, Madeline Roy, Sawyer Shelton and Jamie Bordelon – will live on in memory at the Coliseum Boulevard campus for decades.