The No. 15 LaGrange Gators smothered No. 18 Iota with its defense to win 61-31 in the Nonselect Division II bi-district playoffs on Thursday.

“That’s what we’ve been working on,” LaGrange head coach LaKeem Holmes said. “Since we’re going to be on the road for the rest of the playoffs, if we can get that part of our game to travel that’s the one thing we can do consistently.”

The Gators (15-10) forced Iota to turn the ball over on their first six possessions and opened the game with a 9-0 lead. Iota (12-12) turned the ball over a total of 25 times.

LaGrange held Iota to four field goals in the first half and led 29-14 at halftime. The Gators didn’t concede a field goal in the third quarter.

The Gators had their best offense stretch to open the second half. They went on a 14-2 run to up the lead to 43-16, including consecutive 3-pointers by Marleigh Alexis, Tiona Harris and Jahzlynn Moore. Alexis led the Gators with a game-high 18 points.

Holmes wants to see more improvement on the offensive side as the Gators prepare to face No. 1 North Vermilion (25-2)  on the road in the regional round. The Gators turned the ball over 13 times.

“We are missing layups and missing opportunities against,” Holmes said. If you’re trying to advance, you definitely have to complete those things, but I like their confidence.

“At the beginning of the year, we didn’t take some of those shots. Now we’ve taken those shots. We are going to get it back on defense, so I’m not mad at it at all.

“We have to clean it up. It (competition) gets better every round. We’re going on the road, playing the No. 2 seed, who has won a lot of games. We can’t make so many mental mistakes.”

Addison Young led Iota with 17 points and went 9 of 10 from the free throw line.