As the East St. John High School girls basketball team celebrated its thrilling overtime victory over Denham Springs last week, head coach Stasha Thomas-James said she was busy thanking God.

On Feb. 23, the Lady Wildcats defeated Denham Springs to clinch a spot in Thursday night’s Class 5A semifinals, where they will take on No. 1 seed Barbe.

Game time is 6:15 p.m. in the University Center on the campus of Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond.

A win in that game would send East St. John to the championship game Saturday at 8 p.m., perhaps against fellow River Parishes rival Destrehan, the No. 3 seed that is going into the tournament with a perfect 33-0 record.

For East St. John, it’s the first trip to the State Tournament since 2004, when the LadyCats were the No. 1 team in the state, the No. 19 team in the country and the favorite to win its first state title.

They were upset by Dominican in the semifinals.

Thomas-James had no hyphen in her name back then.

She was just Stasha Thomas, a lowly sophomore on the team coached by Troy Giordano.

Perhaps there aren’t many folks left at East St. John who remember Giordano, but those who knew him will never forget him.

He was larger than life in more ways than one, a mammoth beast of a man who gave up selling insurance and working at Walmart to live his dream of coaching girls basketball.

He was known for his size, his humor, the one time he cursed about the referees in a post-game press conference in Hammond, his pride in the number of players he sent to college and his ties.

He wore the ugliest ties — on purpose — sticking with the same one until his team lost a game.

That was his trademark as Giordano coached the girls basketball team from 1997 through 2009.

This was a team that had gone 1-16 in 1992. Giordano led it to its first ever district championship in 1997, then its first State Tournaments in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004.

The Lady Wildcats never did get the golden boot trophy from the LHSAA, but they got a silver in 2001.

Then, one afternoon in 2009, Giordano left East St. John in Reserve for his home in Belle Chasse after a long day of teaching and smashed his van into the back of a stalled 18-wheeler on the Interstate.

He was 42.

He left a wife, two sons and a whole generation of women basketball players to mourn his death, including Thomas-James.

Of all the players who sat in those folding chairs next to Giordano over his 13 years as the coach, Thomas-James said she might be the last one he  would have pointed out for this destiny.

“He’s probably rolling in his grave,” Thomas-James said.

“I think I might be the last person he would say would become a coach, then come back to this team and lead it back to the tournament.”

But it’s Thomas-James who led the LadyCats this season, even missing time to give birth to a baby boy in January.

“I’m thankful to Coach Troy,” Thomas-James said. “He taught me so much. I’ve been thinking about him a lot.”

As someone who knew and will never forget Giordano, I think he would be proud of this team and his former player who became his coach. I think he’ll be cheering them on Thursday night.

And he’ll even dust off his ugliest tie for the occasion.

Lori Lyons is sports editor at L’OBSERVATEUR. She can be reached at lori.lyons@lobservateur.com or 985-652-9545.