By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

GONZALES — People have different takes on moral victories. Some take them, others refuse to acknowledge them.

But in East St. John’s District 7-5A opening 2-1 loss Tuesday to East Ascension, even the most competitive of the Wildcats would have to admit that the match was something to build upon.

“I think we definitely surprised them,” said Dupuy.

The Spartans (9-2-3) carried a top five ranking in the state into the game but found themselves in a dogfight with the Wildcats, who suffered their first loss of the season in the contest.

East Ascension scored five minutes into the game, but East St. John tied things up on Darion Monroe’s header just five minutes later. Monroe was assisted on the play by Andrew Alexander.

“It was beautiful,” said Dupuy. “(Monroe) went up over everybody. He looked like he was going up for a slam dunk, head and shoulders above everyone else.”

The Spartans answered 15 minutes later with a second goal — and it would stand as the winning score.

“It was a breakaway through the middle. We didn’t recover,” said Dupuy. “Just a bit of a defensive breakdown.”

Rickey Williams made 19 saves in the goal for ESJ (7-1-3, a performance that Dupuy said, if repeatable, will make the Wildcats incredibly tough to score upon.

“He had an amazing game,” said Dupuy. “They took a lot of shots and he was there on all of them.”

Dupuy, who early in the season stressed improvement on his team’s conditioning, said that he felt his team seemed stronger in the final 10 minutes of play.

“I thought we had them on the ropes,” said Dupuy. “We had a great chance to tie when DeChris (Strong) had a shot from about 10 yards away. He just lost his balance … we had a lot of opportunities at the end. We just didn’t finish.”

Dupuy said that while he’d have liked to have started district play with a win, the start was encouraging. ESJ has struggled in district play in recent years, but the performance Tuesday suggests that the team’s unbeaten start was certainly no fluke.

“It was the best game we’ve played against East Ascension since we began in this district four years ago,” said Dupuy. “If we continue to improve, I think we’ve got a good chance to win (a rematch) at our place.”