When the Catholic High Panthers take the field tonight in the Division III quarterfinals, they will be facing an opponent that they’ve only faced twice before, but both games were classics that came down to almost the final play each time.

In 2013, CHS face Calvary Baptist at home in the Division III semifinals and lost 34-33. The next year CHS and Calvary squared off in the Superdome in the D III championship and the Cavaliers claimed a 27-24 win.

A tipped ball interception on Catholic High’s final drive to win the game saved Calvary in 2013 and in 2014, the Panthers gave a team that eventually sent 10 players to Division I college football, including  Ole Miss quarterback Shea Patterson, all it could handle.

“We really overachieved the previous two times we played them,” CHS coach Brent Indest said. “We really didn’t have the firepower to stay on the field with them the first time at our place in the semifinals.

“We had the ball bounce our way a couple of times and had a super chance to beat them and just didn’t get it done in the end. And in the Dome, we had the ball in our hands down three with two minutes left against a team that had 10 future Division I players and what I think was four future NFL players.”

While the 2017 version of the Cavaliers may not have the star power of that 2014 team, they still have some considerable talent to deal with.

“They remind of that junior/senior class that we faced a few years back,” Indest said. “They are just as big as those teams and just as fast as those teams but what they’re missing is the star power of a Shea Patterson, Orlando Bradford and Shun Brown and those guys.

“Their four losses this year are to teams that I honestly can say I don’t know if we would have beat them.”

Calvary opened the season with four losses in its first five games but those losses were to Class 5A Byrd, Class 3A Union Parish, Class 4A Bastrop and Class 3A Sterlington.

“We’re going to have all we can handle with these guys,” Indest said.

What is working for CHS this year is two-fold.

First, Catholic High has several players that have been starting since they were sophomores, including quarterback Diallo Landry and running backs JaDan Stokes and Ben Landry. 

Secondly, since those first two meetings, Indest has been able to implement more and more of his offense, including different formations, and his defense, including more and varied coverages.

“I don’t think that this team is any more talented than the Dome team,” the CHS coach said. “I do think that we’ve evolved more offensively and defensively.

“Football is a little like math. Every year you can add a little more and a little more. You start out doing simple math and eventually you’re doing calculus. We can do a whole lot more things now that we could do then.

“We have a few more bullets in our gun and I think that puts us in a better mindset when we face precarious situations. We can go to more sets on offense and coverages on defense now we used to do.”

The winner of today’s quarterfinals takes on the winner of No. 10 seed St. Thomas Aquinas and No. 2 seed Newman in the semifinals Thanksgiving week. 

Either way, the Panthers will be on the road in Hammond at STA, which CHS beat 56-17 in week three, or on in New Orleans, where the Panthers have beaten the Greenies the last two times they’ve played in the playoffs, in 2014 in the semifinals and last year in the quarterfinals.

But first is a chance to post a win against a team that CHS has not beaten.

“Things are a little different this time because we are more advanced now than we were then,” said Indest.