By JOHNNY PEPPO

Sports Editor

RESERVE – East St. John coach Larry Dauterive actually had a question for reporters immediately following the Wildcat’s 47-22 win over West Jefferson last Friday night.

&#8220What’s Destrehan doing?”

Dauterive, who celebrated his 200th win as a coach with the victory, was already getting the scoop on next week’s opponent. He found out that the Destrehan Wildcats had narrowly beaten Hahnville, and will remain undefeated entering the final week of the schedule.

As for the game at hand, it was business as usual as ESJ left with their ninth victory of the year. Running back Johnny Owen was productive, picking up 216 of the Wildcats 307 yards on the ground, and reached 1,000 yards rushing for the second straight season. With one week left on the regular season schedule, Owen now has more than 1,200 yards.

&#8220Our mindset was to run the ball Johnny Owen did a lot of that for us,” said Dauterive. &#8220Clearly he’s a workhorse so we’ll ride him and see how far we can go.”

Quarterback Johnnie Thiel was productive as well, passing for more than 200 yards and three touchdowns and running for almost 70 more. Receiver David Hampton caught the first from five yards out while Terrance Young took in the second and third from just beyond the ten yard-line.

The Wildcats defense made West Jeff earn their offensive yardage after giving up a 79-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter. ESJ forced two punts, three fumbles and came up with an interception.

But the game wasn’t totally in hand for Dauterive and his squad until the fourth quarter when Owen put in his third and fourth T Ds of the night.

&#8220This was a great win against a good opponent,&#8220 said Dauterive. &#8220We’ve got a lot of respect over here for [West Jefferson]. They’ve got a lot of big play potential with them.”