By RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur
BOUTTE — East St. John coach Jackson Manuel may not have been thrilled with his team’s overall performance in Tuesday’s District 8-5A game at Hahnville.
But, he said, his Ladycats did what was necessary in the end, nailing down a 43-29 victory over the host Tigers.
The win was critical for an ESJ team harboring district championship dreams. East St. John fell last week to Destrehan and couldn’t afford to fall two games back of DHS.
“It’s a big win,” said Manuel. “We let Destrehan get a leg up and now we’re fighting from behind. We can’t go from one to two down tonight if we expect to be district champions.”
Jermani Thompson led ESJ (14-8, 2-1) with 12 points. Da’Rae Taylor added 10. Nya Duhe scored eight and Brishane Haynes scored six.
Mariana Gilbert led Hahnville (7-13, 2-1) with 10 points. Christa Shelton and Danashia LeBeauf each scored six.
It was Hahnville’s first district loss of the season.
Defensively, East St. John was good as gold once again, holding Hahnville to just 11 points in the first half as it took a 24-11 lead into the break. The Tigers’ 29-point output represented the seventh time this season that ESJ has held a team to less than 30 points in a game.
Largely, it came down to the Ladycats’ press. ESJ forced Hahnville into a bevy of mistakes and kept the Tiger guards from getting their team into their offensive sets comfortably.
“We prepared for their press and it wasn’t that anything they did surprised us,” said Hahnville coach Kevin Robicheaux. “East St. John is well-coached … what they do, they do a very good job with, and it’s hard to simulate (ESJ’s press) in practice, since they do it so much and so well.
“Basically, we didn’t play how we practiced … We sometimes shoot ourselves in the foot.”
But offensively, Manuel clearly wanted to see better execution. The Wildcats committed a season-high 30 turnovers and both teams had to deal with foul trouble; both of ESJ’s starting guards, Thompson and Taylor, had to sit stretches with foul trouble in the first half.
“It was very ugly. That’s what we can’t do if we’re going to be the team we want to be,” said Manuel. “We were sloppy for no reason.”
Thompson said that despite the mistakes, she and her teammates maintained focus, which allowed ESJ to control the game despite some offensive droughts.
“Just slide your feet and play defense. Keep playing hard,” said Thompson. “We’re an aggressive team. Sometimes that’ll get us into foul trouble, and tonight we got into it early. We just have to play through it.
“That (Destrehan game) was our game to win We made too many little, simple mistakes. We still need to clean that up. If we’re going to catch Destrehan.”