By RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur

LAPLACE — Three weeks ago, people wondered how East St. John would fix its primary concern, that being an inability to score points.
Now, the Wildcats seemingly can’t stop scoring, be it offensively, defensively or on special teams.
East St. John scored 35 points in a win over South Lafourche two weeks ago and topped that last week, scoring 48 in a 48-14 rout of Central Lafourche. Xavier Lewis scored a rushing, receiving and punt return touchdowns in the game, a microcosm of the well-rounded effort the Wildcats displayed as a whole last week. East St. John scored two special teams touchdowns and added a fumble return on defense while scoring four offensive touchdowns.
East St. John scored just 14 total points over its first three games.
“We’ve said all along that those first three games were going to prepare us for our district. That’s exactly what it did for us,” said East St. John coach Phillip Banko. “We didn’t put too much of starting 0-1, 0-2, 0-3, because we knew we were getting better.”
East St. John (2-3) has a chance to even its record as it prepares to host a struggling H.L. Bourgeois team Friday night.
The Braves enter this game 0-5, most recently falling to Thibodaux by a 49-6 score. A week prior to that, Bourgeois fell by five to Central Lafourche, it’s lone common foe with East St. John thus far.
H.L. Bourgeois went 2-8 in 2012. This is the Braves’ first season under new coach Daron Franklin, Bourgeois’ fourth coach in as many years.
The team’s offense started the season hot, scoring 20 in a close loss to South Terrebonne and then exploding for 48 against Ellender. The Braves have cooled since, scoring just 20 total points in its previous three games.