By RYAN ARENA

Sports Editor

East St. John girls basketball Coach Troy Giordano says that, aside from one game against Hammond, his team hasn’t put together a complete performance yet this season.

That said, if the Wildcats continue to perform in the second half as they have in their last two games, it might suffice for awhile.

East St. John defeated Thibodeaux 55-37 last Wednesday in a consolation game at the Battle on the Bayou tournament at the Alario Center. After a holiday break, the Wildcats followed it up with a 67-45 win at Istrouma.

The Wildcats (6-4) outscored Istrouma 45-26 in the second half, and outscored Thibodeaux 38-13 in the second half of that game.

“We’ve played two back to back great second halves,” said Giordano. “When we can start putting full games together, we’re going to be really tough.”

Against Istrouma, Christin Hildreth scored 17 and Mechelle Thomas scored 16 to lead the way for the Wildcats. Wanisha Creecy added 13.

After East St. John took a 14-2 first quarter lead, Istrouma outscored the Wildcats 18-8 in the second quarter to cut the lead to 22-20 at halftime.

“We really struggled in the first half. We had some people in foul trouble, and they capitalized.”

But the second half was a different story. East St. John scored 28 points in the third quarter and extended its lead to 18 entering the fourth. From there, the Wildcats coasted.

“We picked up our full court pressure and forced some turnovers,” Giordano said. “We got the lead up to 10, then they started taking threes and those long rebounds allowed us to start running.”

In the victory over Thibodeaux, Thomas led the way with 22 points. Laci Dent scored 10. Creecy and Hildreth scored eight each.

Thibodeaux led 24-14 at the half, but East St. John turned on the Jets in the third quarter. Again, the Wildcats scored a game high in that quarter, 23, and would lead 37-32 entering the fourth quarter.

East St. John put it away by outscoring Thibodeaux 15-5 in the final quarter.

“We looked like we did the day before (against Plaquemine) in the first half,” said Giordano. “We were sluggish. But in the second half we started running the floor better and putting pressure on the other team.”