The celebration was muted. A few high-fives, some good wishes all around but for the most part, just another day Monday as Catholic High swept West St. Mary 25-11, 25-5, 25-8 in a Division IV, District 6 volleyball match.

But after being deposed for a year by E.D. White when the team was in Division III, Catholic High celebrated its first year in Division IV Monday with a win that gave the Lady Panthers a share of the district title, which the team can clinch outright with a win against Berwick today.

“We’re real excited,” said Catholic High coach April Harris, whose team improved to 23-8 overall, 3-0 in district. “I just want to say the girls worked hard and I’d just like to say that West St. Mary came out, played hard. We’re just glad that we won and that we are district champs right now.”

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Undeniably the best team in a three-team district, Catholic High’s march to the district title was more a stroll. The Lady Panthers have yet to lose a game in the three district matches played and have now won seven straight matches, two short of the nine match winning streak CHS enjoyed earlier this year.

In district play, the Lady Panthers have won each game by an average of just under 14 points and have managed to maintain focus for each opponent during district play.

“I think our biggest thing is that we try to do our best for practice,” said Harris. “We meet our standards every day. The girls know what they have to do in practice and try to improve every game even if our game isn’t our best.”

Catholic High didn’t have to have its best game against the Lady Wolfpack, who made more than enough errors to supplement the points the Lady Panthers earned on offense or defense.

Lanie Lissard led CHS with seven kills. Casey Breaux had four kills and two aces, Marie Hoag and Kirsten Kidder each had three kills, Mary Frances Hoag had two kills, Taylor Lahasky had eight aces, Abby Henagan had six aces, Sydney Lahasky had five assists and Caity Breaux had 10 assists.

With a 3-0 district record, Catholic High can only be tied by Berwick (10-15, 2-1) with a loss to the Lady Panthers today. West St. Mary (2-15, 0-4) ended its season with a six-game losing streak.

While Catholic High’s district was not particularly strong this year, the Lady Panthers still took an approach that they had to get better each time out. Harris and assistant coach Joanne Uhl also did their best to schedule opponents, especially toward the end of the regular season, that would prepare the team for postseason play.

“Our district is not as strong as we would have liked it to be,” said Harris. “Even with that, we still worked hard in practice. And we still have Morgan City to look forward to and the ESA Tournament this week.

“We are going to get good competition going into the playoffs.”

West St. Mary coach Megan Frederick declined comment after the game.

As of the last unofficial rankings released by the Louisiana High School Athletic Association on Oct. 12, Catholic High was the fifth seeded team in Division IV and when the final rankings are released Nov. 1 the team should still be in the top 10, maybe even in the top five, which is where Harris thinks her team should be ranked.

“I think that we look pretty confident right now and should be in the top 10,” she said.

Delcambre 3, Assembly Christian 0

DELCAMBRE -- Hacie Stelly had seven kills and an ace as Delcambre swept Assembly Christian 25-8, 25-12, 25-6 Monday in Division V, District 2.

Kaily Williams had two aces and a kill for DHS. Jenny Bouillion added six kills, four aces and 15 assists; Alex Trahan had five kills and six aces; Alli Dunbar had three kills; Emily LeBlanc had four kills, five aces and seven assists; and Alexa Grossie had three kills and two aces.

Delcambre (14-19, 4-1) closes out the regular season Wednesday at Ascension Episcopal. With a win, the Lady Panthers will clinch a share of the district title with the Lady Blue Gators.

ACS (1-20, 1-5) closes out the regular season Thursday at North Central.