BY RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur

LAPLACE – East St. John began the season on a three-game losing streak, but that’s a thing of the past: the Wildcats are no surging, winners of three straight games.
Nigel Anderson rushed for 168 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries to pace host ESJ in a dominant 31-8 victory over H.L. Bourgeois in District 7-5A action.
The Wildcats’ Jarrod Jackson hauled in two touchdown receptions among his three catches for 96 yards. Xavier Lewis rushed eight times for 64 yards and passed for 98 more.
Jackson got the Wildcats (3-3, 3-0) going early on a 29-yard scoring reception. He’d add the team’s second score on a 49-yarder to make it 14-0.
Amani Martin’s 11-yard touchdown reception pushed the lead to 21-0. Anderson’s touchdown run came from 16 yards out, and Hector Barrera nailed a 32-yard field goal to round out the scoring for the Wildcats.
While the offense continued to flow, the Wildcats’ defense held H.L. Bourgeois to eight points, a season-low allowed for the ESJ defense.
“I thought we played extremely well defensively,” said East St. John coach Phillip Banko. “They’ve got some playmakers over there. On the other side of it, I think we’ve been doing a great job of getting our playmakers the ball and that continued tonight. Xavier had another outstanding game in a bunch of areas. He returned a punt about 45 yards … he affects the game in a lot of different ways.”
H.L. Bourgeois dropped to 0-6 this season, 0-3 in District 7-5A. After  scoring 68 combined points through its first two games this season, Bourgeois has scored just 28 total over the four games since.