The aftermath of last week’s 49-0 shutout loss to Notre Dame came quickly as Catholic High dropped from second to seventh in the Louisiana Sports Writers Association prep polls and sixth in the LHSAA’s latest unofficial Division III power rankings released Tuesday.

The Panthers may even have suffered a little confidence drop after being dominated by the Pioneers.

But head coach Brent Indest has always maintained that the next game is the most important game of the season and that game comes a day earlier than normal as CHS (3-1) opens District 7-2A play Thursday on the road at surprising Jeanerette (2-2, 1-0). The Tigers are surging after beating Loreauville for the first time in a couple of decades.

“You always itch to get back on the field after you get taken to the woodshed like we did last week,” said Indest. “We’re definitely looking forward to playing the next game.

“The kids’ attitudes have been good. Kids are far more resilient than adults. I think that it’s a little more important for the adults to get over it more than the kids. They know that the situation is similar to last year and we came back last year and we’re looking forward to the same thing.”

Last season, Catholic High started 3-0, lost to Notre Dame 37-0 in Crowley, then ran off nine straight wins, including a 33-16 win over Notre Dame in the Division III championship, to claim the team’s first state title since 1962.

That run started with a 57-8 win over Jeanerette at Catholic High. A year later, the potential run starts with a game at Jeanerette.

“We’re just going to try to control what we can control,” Indest said. “The goal is to win out and see where we fall in the bracket and do the best that we can.

“That goal starts this week.”

Jeanerette enters the game with a 2-2 record and tied with Franklin and Ascension Episcopal for first place in district after last week’s win at Loreauville.

The Tigers’ recent history against Catholic High has not been good. Since 2009, Jeanerette has lost nine straight games by an average score of 60-11, including a 72-6 score in 2013.

But none of that matters in 2017.

“We expect a team that’s flying pretty high because they haven’t beaten Loreauville in many years, at least since I’ve been here at Catholic High,” Indest said. “We expect a confident football team that’s expecting to win.

“We need to come out and do what we typically do early in games and hopefully create some space between us and them and feed off of that.”

Not helping the issue is that Catholic High will enter the game off of one less day of practice.

“We’re going to have one less day of practice and what makes it worse is that we haven’t been able to get outside due to the weather,” the CHS coach said. “But I like my kids’ maturity with how they handle practice indoors. We’re trying to have a little more fun with the game-plan this week especially defensively with given them more looks and the kids are enjoying it.”