By Chris Singleton

Special to the American Press

WESTWEGO — It wasn’t the usual offensive output for St. Louis Catholic during a Division II semifinal game against Ben Franklin on Tuesday.

But the No. 1-seeded Saints had just enough juice from the duo of Myca Trail and Paris Guillory in the second half to roll to a 61-35 win over No. 4 Ben Franklin at the Alario Center.

Trail and Guillory finished with double-doubles — Trail finished with 24 points and 15 rebounds, and Guillory had 22 points and 17 rebounds.

Trail said the Saints (28-3) are motivated to defend their state championship.

“I think it means more to us this year because it’s our last year,” Trail said. “We have been here all four years. We’ve worked hard to get here.”

St. Louis will play No. 3 St. Thomas More, which beat No. 2 Vandebilt Catholic 49-28 in the other semifinal, in the state championship game at 5:15 p.m. Thursday.

St. Louis entered the game averaging 90.5 points in its first two playoff games.

The Saints led 13-9 after the first quarter and 23-12 at halftime, but they exploded in the third quarter with 20 points to go ahead 43-22 entering the final quarter.

“We started the first half off a little slow,” St. Louis coach Tony Johnson said. “We weren’t playing real good on offense and weren’t executing good. In the second half, we picked up the tempo a little bit and we started our style of basketball. We were able to get some easy shots and we played defense in the second half. That’s where we opened the game.”

St. Louis owned a 49-26 advantage on the boards and shot 49 percent from the field. Ben Franklin was held to 23 percent.

“We entered the game with the mind-set to get offensive rebounds,” Guillory said. “Our coach always says defense wins championships. That’s what we do.”

Petra Trumbach led Ben Franklin with 13 points and Cyd Gauff had 12 points.