Stacia Thomas scores 31 en route to 61-33 Lady Cat victory

By CALEB FREY

Sportswriter

RESERVE– The Lady Saints of West Felicicana came to visit the East St. John Lady Wildcats Jan. 29 for a Sunday Morning Tournament. Each half seemed like a completely different game as the scoring ended almost even in the first half but the second half was all Ldy Wildcats as they found their stride and slowly pulled away to a 61-33 victory.

East St. John’s Stacia Thomas led all scorers with 31 points, and began to pop early in the first as she hit a two-pointer with five minutes left to give the Wildcats a 7-6 lead. West Feliciana’a Katherine Perry answered back on the other side with a three-pointer to regain the lead for the Lady Saints at a 9-7 score.

The Lady Saints were using traps and double teams early on to force turnovers in the first half. The scoring was scarce in the first half for both teams as defense ruled the tempo of the game. West Feliciana scored a jumper late in the first to knot the score at 13.

ESJ’s Thomas started the second quarter out by hitting two free-throws to regain the lead for ESJ. The Lady Cats clinged tightly to their lead even after a nearly non-existent second quarter left the score at the half 23-20 in favor of ESJ.

ESJ’s Leslie Thomas started off the second half strong grabbing nearly everything that came of the boards and scoring six straight points for the Lady Cats to increase their lead to 31-22 with less than four minutes in the third. The Lady Cats never looked back from then on as they could seemingly do no wrong on the court in the second half ending the third quarter up 37-22, holding the Lady Saints to just two points in the third.

The fourth quarter was more of the same as ESJ dominated on boards, capitalizing on nearly every shot. Lady Saints head Coach wasn’t too happy about the calls his girls were or weren’t getting and decided to express his disagreement with the referees. After a couple of choice words by the coach that involved some vulgarity he was ejected from the game.

The Lady Cats played strong in the fourth quarter even though they were up big to knock the Saints off 61-33. Millikin led The Lady Saints in scoring with 12 points.

“We had a really slow first half but picked up the defense in the second half, started to get more rebounds,” said East St John coach Troy Giordano.

“We have Destrehan at Destrehan Tuesday night,” the coach said of their upcoming schedule. &#8220This is a game that could decide the district champion. It should be a hell of a match up.”