MICHAEL KIRAL / L’Observateur / Febuary 24, 1999

LAPLACE – West St. John captured its second straight District 9-2Achampionship with a 75-52 victory at St. Charles Catholic Friday night.The Rams (19-5, 9-1) will play host to a bi-district playoff game this week. St. Charles Catholic (12-17, 5-5) fell into a third-place tie withRiverside, a winner over Ecole Classique Friday. The Comets and Rebelsplayed the tie-breaker at Reserve Christian Monday night.

Jeremy Lumar led the Rams with 26 points. Donriel Louis tossed in 16points while Marlon Jackson added 10.

St. Charles Catholic was led by Credere Joseph with 17 points. BrandonBrous-sard contributed eight.

West St. John overcame a St. Charles Catholic stall that last almost threeminutes to take an early 9-0 lead. Pendarvis Morris scored on a three-point play after taking a pass from Elijah Jasmin inside. Jasmin thendrove in and dropped off a pass to Jackson to give the Rams the nine-point advantage.

The Comets got their first basket of the game at the 2:37 mark as Courtney Bonura found Joseph driving down the lane. The Rams pulled outto nine-point lead again on a drive by Lumar and a jumper from the left corner by Louis before Broussard buried a 3-pointer from the right wing at the buzzer to make it 15-9.

Broussard hit a jumper from the right baseline to make it a four-point game early in the second quarter. But Louis came back to draw a foul on ajumper from the left baseline and completed the three-point play.

After two free throws by Jasmin on the next possession, Morris grabbed a steal and passed to Louis who banked in a jumper, making it 22-13 with 5:45 left. A jumper and a put back by Lumar built the lead to 14 and WestSt. John would take a 34-21 lead into the break.West St. John opened the second half with a 14-4 run to take a 23-pointlead. Morris grabbed a rebound and found Lumar with a deep pass to startthe run. Lumar then grabbed a steal on the left sidelines and took it in tomake it 40-21.

St. Charles Catholic got on the scoreboard at the 5:22 mark as CourtneyBaloney found John Mitchell driving the lane. But Lumar came back with athree-point play off a put back, then grabbed a steal and took it in to make it 48-23 with five minutes left in the quarter.

After the Comets made it a 21-point game on a pass from Broussard to Steven Wash-ington, Jasmin hit a 3-pointer from the right arc. CarlGauthier followed with a steal, passing to Louis for a dunk. A drive byAbner Sanders and a tap in by Mitchell brought the Comets to within 21 before the Rams took a 58-34 lead into the fourth quarter.

A jumper by Broussard and a pass from Washington to Baloney inside brought the Comets to within 71-52 before Lumar scored on two late put backs.

“Against a team like this, you can’t miss free throws, you can’t miss scoring opportunities and give them second chances,” St. Charles Catholiccoach Philip Cavell said. “You can’t make mistakes or they will capitalizeand we made too many mistakes. When they made mistakes, we couldn’ttake advantage of it.”West St. John coach Antoine Edwards said he wanted to get ahead earlyand avoid getting into a stall game.

“One of the things we stressed in pregame was to get good ball movement and get everybody involved and I thought we did that,” Edwards said. “Thebig thing is we came out and won the ball game. We wanted to win thedistrict outright and prepare for the playoffs. I thought we came out andshot the ball well from the perimeter and our inside game was good.”

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