LAPLACE — Two St. John the Baptist Parish volleyball teams played their last regular season games Thursday night against each other.

East St. John High School traveled down the road to St. Charles Catholic to play the Lady Comets for their Senior Night, and SCC defeated the Lady Cats 3-0 in a tight match.

The scores — 25-20, 25-18 and 25-18 — don’t do justice to the intense, nail-biting action.

East St. John head volleyball coach Chelsey Lucas-Nicholas said her team came to win and the way they played showed it. St. Charles Catholic was there to win, too.

“Honestly, I don’t feel good about how the night went,” Lucas-Nicholas said. “Like I always say, we are the better team, but we need to learn how to finish. That was our last game of the season. We should have won it all. We are the better team skill-wise.”

St. Charles Catholic head volleyball coach Meghan Ericksen said her team knew what they were getting themselves into going into the match.

“We’ve played East St. John twice now this season and we knew what we were dealing with,” Ericksen said. “We knew what they had and what they were going to bring. We knew we had to match them to beat them. This was the last regular home game of the season and we really wanted it.”

It wasn’t just any last home game of the season for SCC. It was the night the Lady Comets celebrated their seniors.

“We really wanted the win for our seniors,” Ericksen said.

During the first two games, The Lady Comets met the Lady Cats point for point until finally pulling ahead for a win.

As the crowd grew louder, the teams grew more assertive in their play.

In the third game, the Lady Comets were up 11-2 when the Lady Cats regrouped and came back with a vengeance.

ESJ dominated the court, closing the score to 15-15. Both teams knew every point counted and point for point they brought the score to 18-18. That’s where the Lady Comets took over and reached 25 for the win.

“I told the girls that it didn’t matter what happened, they just had to play happy,” Ericksen said. “When they play happy, they win. The played happy and they ended up winning, so it all worked out.”

Maddie Murphy made five kills, 16 assists and six digs. Allison Savoie had six kills and four digs. Lela Hill had six kills and one dig. Alyssa Arceneaux made one kill and 34 digs and Lexi Tran have five kills and five digs.

In other action, East St. John held its Senior Night Wednesday against St. Martin’s Episcopal High School. The Lady Cats lost 2-3 by scores of  21-25, 14-25, 25-20, 25-23 and 13-15.

“It was a really close match,” Lucas-Nicholas said. “But we just weren’t able to pull off a win.”

ESJ did pull off a win Monday when they hosted Eleanor McMain. Lucas-Nicholas said the 3-0 victory was a good way to help close out the season.

The Lady Cats defeated Eleanor McMain with scores 25-8, 25-10 and 25-16.

— By Courtney Griggs