By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

RESERVE – Make it three straight district championships for East St. John.

The Wildcats made it official Thursday night at John Ehret as they toppled the Patriots 51-43 to earn the outright District 8-5A crown, besting second place Higgins by a game.

Tre’Von Jasmine scored 11 points to lead ESJ. Edwin Winston scored 10 and Elex Carter added eight.

East St. John has gone 28-2 in district games over the past three seasons, including a combined 6-0 mark against archrivals Hahnville and Destrehan.

“It’s a testament to our program,” said East St. John coach Yussef Jasmine. “We’ve gotten to a place where we’ve very rarely lost in the second half of the year. It shows how these kids grow as the year goes on.”

Jasmine said that his team, ranked seventh in Class 5A in the most recent LSWA poll, has its sights set on postseason goals – specifically, a state championship.

But that, he said, shouldn’t diminish the pride his players feel in what they’re already been able to accomplish.

“Especially when you consider the level of competition in our district, and that we’ve got four big rivalry games each year against teams like Hahnville and Destrehan … to only lose two district games in three years is almost unbelievable,” said Jasmine. “Our guys are so disciplined and detailed in their approach, and the work they put in makes it possible.”

ESJ led 8-6 after a slow-paced first quarter but was able to push the tempo after that to their advantage. The Wildcats led 25-17 at halftime.

“It started out as something of a boring game,” said Jasmine. “They wanted to slow it down, and when you’re up against a team like we are that’s zone-heavy on defense, you might go three minutes before a shot.

“But the good thing about our team is that while we’re a zone-dominant team, we’ve worked on our man-to-man defense all season. We can call on that when we want to push the pace. And once we got ahead, we forced them to come out and trap us.”

Ehret cut its halftime deficit to four entering the final quarter, but ESJ’s defense held Ehret to nine points in the fourth and the Wildcats emerged with the win and another district title.

“I thought Ehret had a good gameplan. We were able to deal with the situation,” said Jasmine.

Anthony McGee led Ehret with 16 points.

•••••

ESJ 64, BONNABEL 54 – Setting up Friday’s district clincher for ESJ was a 10-point win over Bonnabel last Tuesday.

Tre’Von Jasmine scored 17 to lead all scorers. Edwin Winston scored 12 and Elex Carter added 11 for the Wildcats.

Jatwad Payton scored 13 to lead Bonnabel.

ESJ led by 13 entering the fourth quarter. It led 30-23 at halftime.

Yussef Jasmine said that while the Ehret game was a slower affair, Bonnabel looked to get out and run as much as possible.

The coach said that facing such differing styles in the final week of the regular season was a good exercise for his team prior to the playoffs.

“I feel like our guys are ready to go,” said Jasmine.

ESJ will learn its first round playoff foe this week.