By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

RESERVE – East St. John evened out its district record at 2-2 Friday night as it defeated East Ascension at home, 57-46.

The Wildcats’ Kemyra Arvie led all scorers with 21 points. Brianne Brown scored 17 and Bria Joseph added 14 for ESJ (11-11, 2-2).

“I thought we did a real solid job getting the ball inside to Kemyra,” said East St. John coach Jackson Manuel. “We didn’t turn it over as much as we have been. And I thought we were a lot more consistent in our play and especially our scoring quarter to quarter … we didn’t have that one where we went south.”

Symone Miller led East Ascension (2-14, 0-4) with 17 points.

The Ladycats led by two at halftime, 27-25, but pushed the lead to seven after three quarters and held the Spartans off from there.

“We kept pushing the lead to 10, but we made some of the same mistakes that had been plaguing us,” said Manuel. “Missing easy shots, things like that kept us from really turning it into a blowout.”

But he also praised his team’s ability to finish the game strong.

“To our credit, now, we were able to establish ourselves at the end of the third and make a run to close them out,” said Manuel. “And Kemyra did a really nice job for us. She got the ball near the basket and made her shots and that really helped us.

“We’re still a work in progress.

But if we can keep improving like we did there, we’ll be looking at some good things going forward.”