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CROWLEY – It has been five years since Class B’s Midland Rebels last advanced to the Top 28 Basketball Tournament.
That brief drought can end tonight when the No. 2-seeded Rebels play host to No. 7 Hornbeck at 6:30 p.m. in a quarterfinal contest at the Midland gym.

“We get a quarterfinal game at home and I feel pretty good about it,” said Midland coach Todd Briley. “I think we will do well.

The kids are fired up and I’m pretty excited also. We’re looking forward to it and I expect it to be a pretty fun time.”

Hornbeck (25-14) will obviously attempt to make the night as unpleasant as possible for the Rebels. The Hornets defeated No. 26 Singer in opening round, 40-21, before slipping past No. 23 Doyline, 80-74, Tuesday.

“They (Hornbeck) have some size,” said Briley. “But I don’t know how well they can handle the pressure and that’s what we’re going to bring.”

This year, unlike 2009, the Rebels head into the game 100 percent healthy.

Last year, that wasn’t the case.

“Last year, we got upset in the second round, but we had some health issues we were dealing with,” said Briley. “It’s different this year. Instead of just trying to hold on and hang on to what we have, I feel like the kids are hungry right now. We just want to keep winning some basketball games and we’re going to go win some basketball games.”

Midland opened the 2010 playoffs with a convincing 94-32 victory over Simpson. The Rebels followed up with a 78-45 regional road victory over Hosanna Christian Tuesday.

The Rebels are led by Miles Prejean, B.J. Cormier and Colby Gantt. Prejean racked up 55 points in Midland’s two playoff games while Cormier had 31 and Gantt had 23.

However, junior forward Allen Fontenot, senior guard Michael Vincent and sophomore guard Andrew Hains have added to Midland’s offensive arsenal. Fontenot broke out for 21 points in Tuesday’s game while Vincent and Hains have combined for 29 points the last two games.

“Once the playoffs start, every team is going to have some good players,” said Briley. “Most of the time, the good players cancel each other out. But a lot of times, in these games, it’s your guys that are role players that have big games. That’s going to be the difference.

“We are having some guys scoring for us who we don’t normally depend on to score and that’s been big.”
The winner of tonight’s contest will advance to the Top 28 in Lafayette next week where they will take on either Zwolle or Simboro in a semifinal contest.