District 3-3A has dispensed with the two rounds of district play this high school basketball season, leaving Iowa and Lake Charles College Prep with one opportunity to decide who is the top team in the district.

The schools split two games last season and shared the district championship, but there will be no carving up the title this time. Iowa (23-4, 4-0) will host LCCP (11-7, 3-0) tonight following the girls game that starts at 6 p.m. An Iowa win plus a win over St. Louis Catholic would give the Yellow Jackets the district title outright. LCCP would need to win its next three games to be the sole survivor.

“Going with one round makes things important,” LCCP head coach Sean Andrus said. “Getting that district point makes this one round much more because everything is at stake.

“The guys have to come out and be ready to play because you have to lay everything out the first time. You can’t save anything and see what you have in the second round.”

LCCP won in Iowa last season 74-60, while Iowa won at LCCP 59-58.

Iowa’s losses were to a trio of No. 1 teams in Zachary (nonselect Division I), Peabody (select Division II) and Isidore Newman (select Division III), plus Vandebilt Catholic, the third-ranked team in select Division II.

“I know it is going to be a tough ball game,” Iowa head coach Rob Melanson said. “It is a rivalry.

“You look at the last couple of years, the ball games against them have been close, tight ball games no matter what the records are. There won’t be any sharing. I feel good. With the schedule that we have played this year, if we are not ready for games like this, then I don’t know what is going to get us ready.”

Andrus says he has worked to keep the Trailblazers focused.

“I have been trying to tell my guys to just play even,” he said. “It is going to be a packed crowd, and it is a rivalry game.

“Any time we play you are going to have standing-room only. You can’t get too high when you do something great, and you can’t get too low when you make a mistake. You have to stay somewhere in the middle and play even. You have to have fun playing basketball. Sometimes people forget that it is a kids’ game. They put unneeded pressure on themselves because they think if they make a mistake it is the end of the world. You have to keep playing, stay even and have fun.”

The same thing has been on the mind of the Yellow Jackets.

“We can’t get caught up in this if it is a big crowd tonight,” Melanson said. “We can’t get caught up in the crowd.

“They will make their run and hopefully we will make our run. We have to limit their runs. We can’t get down if we start the game down 8-0, the ball game is not over. It is staying focused, staying humble and knowing what our goals are. For us to maintain those goals I tell them every day at practice that we have to stay focused.”

LCCP has won 10 consecutive games since starting the season 1-7.

“It is just solid defense,” Andrus said. “Our guys have been really getting after it on defense. They have been buying into that grind mentality that we preach so much over here and getting back to our roots. We have been getting after it and getting turnovers so we can transition and get some easy buckets. That has been helping us play at a level that we have been used to over the past few years.”

The Trailblazers will have to contend with a Yellow Jacket team that hasn’t been held under 48 points and is led by a pair of high-scoring guards in Dashawn Ceaser (24 ppg) and Desa’Monte Gradney (18 ppg).

“The challenge isn’t to necessarily stop them,” Andrus said. “It is more just to make it tough on their two guards.

“They have two very high-level guards, college-level guards, and they have a couple of other guards that are pretty good also. It is going to be tough to stop them, but we just want to try to make it tough on them and contest them with high hands. We have to contain what they want to do and not give them easy shots at the bucket.”

While the schools will play again on Feb. 16, that one will be a nondistrict game, making this matchup the last district game for the rivals before Iowa moves up to Class 4A next season. Both coaches said they hope to keep each other on the schedule next season.

“It sucks that we are not going to be district rivals next year because they are moving up to 4A,” Andrus said. “It is a fun game to be a part of. It is the easiest week to coach for me because my guys love the rivalry.

“They are locked in and there is no silliness. But it is a hard week to coach for me because it is such a big game, and you are just ready to get to it.”