By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

EDGARD – West St. John ended a three game district losing streak Monday, defeating Christian Life, 15-5, at home.

The Rams improved to 8-5 on the season, 1-3 in District 8-1A. WSJ is currently in fourth place in the district.

“The big thing is that we got that first district win out of the way,” said West St. John coach Lennix Madere. “We’ve been struggling for awhile. I felt like this was a year where we could make a push at St. John and Ascension Catholic in our district, but so far we haven’t played to our potential.

“We still need better play defensively, but we were improved in that area (Monday). We had a couple of errors, but not eight or nine like we’ve had on some days.”

Christian Life took an early 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning. The Rams rallied back to tie the game entering the third inning. Then the floodgates opened for the West St. John offense: seven runs in the fourth gave WSJ a 10-3 lead, and five more in the bottom of the fifth closed out the Crusaders by the 10-run rule.

Four different Rams went 3 for 4 in the victory. Jarius Moll had two triples and scored three runs. Dontre Turner scored three runs and collected two RBIs. Barry Hanson scored twice and had three RBIs, and Austin Howard was 3 for 4 with two runs and an RBI.

“We hit it pretty good,” said Madere. “And we’ve been hitting it decent. Our pitching hasn’t been bad. Just the errors have hurt us. We made routine plays today, and the offense carried the rest.”

On the mound, Devon Jackson allowed five hits and struck out four, going the complete game.

“He did a nice job for us,” said Madere. “He got a bit tired at the end. But fortunately he was able to close it down and allow us to rest our pitching.”