LAFOURCHE PARISH, La. — People are still recovering from Hurricane Ida. One parish that was greatly impacted by Ida is Lafourche. While people are in the process of rebuilding, Central Lafourche High School Basketball Team is rebuilding as well.
"We're excited to get out here, we're looking forward to practicing again," point guard Conner Duplantis said.
The team had to battle life's obstacles. Last year members on the team battled COVID-19 and were quarantined.
It prevented the team from finding a good groove and from playing games against other schools.
Now the team is recovering from Ida, and showing they are resilient by practicing and training once it was cleared and safe to return to school.
Many members of the team stayed in contact with each other during Ida.
"I wouldn't call us a squad we're more like a family," point guard Mekhi Jacobs said.
The Central Lafourche High School Basketball team has faced many challenges. The squad mostly made of underclassmen was impacted by COVID last year.
"It shut us down a couple of times, especially with the team, every time we would build, we would have to restart because every time because COVID would stop everything we had going on," point guard Javin Sylvester said.
Coach Henry Latten wants to make sure his kids excel despite life's obstacles. Latten wants to instill discipline into the team so they can be successful off the court.
"I want to win but what I want for four years after my young men walk across that stage, where are they going, I want to make sure I gave them some tools to use so that when an Ida comes, they're resilient," Latten said.
The goal is to make sure these kids can have some sort of normalcy.
"Now is the time to establish a routine and make school meaningful both educational and extracurricular a lot of these kids come because of their involvement in the school," Chris Arnold, Central Lafourche High School Principal said.