By JOHNNY PEPPO

Sports Editor

It’s a heated battle in the girls 5-5A race for the district title. And Ehret isn’t doing anybody any favors.

With three of the top teams in the region grouped together, and with only about a dozen losses between them, Hahnville, East St. John and John Ehret have all seen each other once already, with each meeting having lived up to it’s billing. East St. John got it all off on the right foot when they hosted Hahnville in a one-point win for the Reserve team. ESJ turned right around and took another thriller in a road game against Ehret last week. Well, the Lady Patriots kept themselves right in the hunt with an overtime victory at HHS on Tuesday to drop the Lady Tigers to 2-2 in 5-5A.

It began in Hahnville’s favor when the Lady Tigers opened up the first quarter outgunning Ehret to a 17-9 score. Things tightened up in the second and stayed that way all the way through to the final period where Hahnville entered with a six point lead. But the Lady Patriots erased that advantage with an 18-12 run to finish out regulation with a tied score.

In the extended period, the Hahnville squad was just unable to pull into the lead and Ehret picked up their 23rd win out of 27 games this season. The HHS girls squad likewise has just four losses on the season with a 19-4 overall record.

The late game Tuesday night at Hahnville between the Tigers and the Patriots came down to the fourth quarter after the score see-sawed throughout the evening. Down by nine by the half, Ehret went on a 27-17 point run in the third to take a slight lead by the fourth period. From there, the Hahnville squad pulled into and maintained the lead to preserve a narrow 74-73 Tiger win.

Laron Byrd led all scorers in the game with 24 points. Hahnville moves to 14-7 on the season with the win, and are now 2-1 in district play.