RESERVE — The last time the East St. John High School girls basketball team hosted a playoff game, Stasha Thomas-James had no hyphen in her name.

Back then, she was just Stasha Thomas and part of a Lady Wildcats basketball team that won a district championship but bowed out of the playoffs early.

Thursday night she was the coach of a team determined not to see that happen again.

No. 12 seed East St. John had to fight and claw for everything it got, but still managed to get past a persistent No. 21 Live Oak team to take a 55-46 victory at home.

“This was big,” Thomas-James said. “I can’t even say when was the last time we had a playoff game at home. It was probably when I was here.”

The Wildcats (23-6) will have to travel to Lake Charles to take on No. 5 Sam Houston in a regional round playoff game Monday. It will mark East St. John’s first appearance in the second round since 2004 when the team advanced to the state tournament then known as the Sweet 16 for the third time.

The Lady Eagles (20-14) didn’t make it easy.

Although East St. John never trailed, it never really put the game away as Thomas-James expected it to.

Live Oak stayed close with aggressive defense and some solid outside shooting.

The Eagles hit nine 3-pointers, eight coming from Presley Wascom.

East St. John hit only one.

But Nakendria Wilson and Meah Monroe dominated the inside game.

Both finished with 12 points. Brianna Thompson scored 11 and Kynedi Pollard scored 10.

Wilson scored nine of her points in the final period to help the LadyCats pull away in the fourth quarter.

The Eagles managed to tie the game at 29 with 3:20 remaining in the third quarter when Wascom hit yet another 3-pointer.

East St. John shut her down for the rest of the period to take a 41-35 lead at the end of the quarter.

“We just couldn’t get going in the beginning,” Thomas-James said.

“It surprised me because we had a good week of practice in preparation. I thought our starting result would be different. I kept waiting for us to catch on fire, but we had to work for everything we got. I told them we just had to play through it.”

Thompson said nerves may have played a part.

“We made the game way harder than it was supposed to be,” Thompson said.

“I’m just glad we pulled it off. We like to take care of simple things, boxing out and just playing defense. Defense wins games.  That’s what coach tells us. We weren’t stopping the ball — the 3-pointer. We weren’t stopping the shooter.”

Riverside  71

Runnels 12

The No. 12 Lady Rebels had little trouble with winless No. 21 seed Runnels to advance in the Division III playoffs.

Riverside (17-15) earned itself a rematch against District 12-2A opponent St. Mary’s Academy in a regional round game to be played at 6 p.m. Monday at St. Mary’s.

Jonesboro-Hodge 66

West St. John 41

Jaquana Hunter scored 27 points in a losing effort on the road in the Class 2A playoffs. The Lady Rams finished the season 17-12.

No. 7 St. Charles Catholic earned a first round bye in the Division III playoffs and will host Dunham at 6 p.m. Monday.