By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

East St. John recently competed in the Woodlawn tournament this past weekend, and came away with a win, loss and tie.

The Wildcats began play Saturday with a 3-1 victory over Denham Springs, then took the field again later that day to tie powerhouse East Ascension’s JV squad, 2-2.

On Monday, the team returned to action but fell to host Woodlawn, 2-0.

DeChris Strong, Tremond McQuarter and Joseph Perrilloux each scored goals for East St. John (4-8-3) in the Denham Springs win. The Wildcats took a 3-0 lead before allowing a breakaway goal late in the contest.

“I thought we did a real nice job defensively,” said ESJ coach Paul Dupuy. “We kept them away from the net and won in the middle (of the field) most of the game. I thought it was really the difference.”

The JV Spartans, meanwhile, took a 2-0 lead into the second half of play in their match with the Wildcats. ESJ responded after 20 minutes of play in the second half when Tyler Hazet broke away from the defense and scored to make it 2-1. Less than five minutes later, DeChris Strong did the same to tie things up.

From there, neither team could break into the scoring column and the match ended knotted up.

“It was a confidence boost to come back. (East Ascension) plays very good soccer,” said Dupuy. “We had some chances to go ahead, but their goalkeeper was the difference there. He made a bunch of tough saves.”

Unlike the opening match with Denham Springs, Woodlawn’s size and physical play presented more of a problem in the middle of the field for ESJ.

“They’ve got some big guys,” said Dupuy. “We didn’t challenge them as much in the middle.

“We hurt ourselves at times in that one, but there were still definitely some good points to take away (from the tournament).”