By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

Antoine Edwards knows the drill.

The veteran West St. John basketball coach knows his players are all going to be coming into the season fresh from the gridiron. And given the Rams tradition as a strong football program, the likelihood is that he won’t be getting those players until late November.

The process has started again, and Edwards and his Rams have begun the season 1-2 at the E.D. White tournament.

“We’re just getting back into the rhythm of things,” said Edwards. “Our guys were just coming off of the quarterfinals, so we only had a couple days of preparation. “It’ll take a little time, but right now we’re working on getting into basketball shape.”

The Rams opened last Wednesday with a 90-33 loss to Gulfport (MS). Daylon Feist led WSJ with 10 points.

Things would improve from there. Thursday saw the Rams take another loss, this time to Central Lafourche, 68-49.

But Saturday, WSJ broke through with a 51-43 win over Grace King.

Blake Carter led WSJ over the Irish, scoring a game-high 19 points.

“Even against Central Lafourche, I thought we played a little better,” said Edwards. “In the first game, we looked like we’d never touched a basketball before. From there, though, we played much better defensively. And against Grace King we didn’t turn it over much.”

The Irish actually took a 16-9 lead after the first quarter, but WSJ outscored Grace King in every quarter thereafter.

King led 28-25 at halftime, but West St. John led by five entering the fourth quarter.

Against Central Lafourche, Carter and Denzel Pierre each scored 11. Dray Joseph added 10.

The Trojans had a similar start to the Irish, outscoring the Rams 15-9 in the first quarter. But they were able to build on it, extending their lead to 14 at halftime, and 15 after three quarters.

“We started playing better, but we’re just trying to find ourselves right now,” said Edwards.

“We’ve been in this situation for a long time. We just have to be patient.”