New Iberia Senior High lost quarterback Cameron Blake, with ball, to an injury early in the third quarter of Friday’s home district game against Barbe.

New Iberia Senior High School head football coach Rick Hutson couldn’t have expected anything more from an injury-depleted Yellow Jackets football team than he got Friday night, and he told his team just how proud he was of them after a hard-fought, 26-7 loss to the Barbe Buccaneers.

“I am proud of the way our kids competed tonight, really proud of the way our defense played tonight,” Hutson said.

The Yellow Jackets went toe-to-toe with the Bucs, a perennial playoff contender that has been ranked for much of the season in the Class 5A polls. Cameron Blake electrified the fans and his teammates by returning the opening kickoff 75 yards to set up a touchdown less than two minutes into the game, and the teams were knotted up at 7 apiece after one quarter and at halftime.

But Blake, who started at quarterback after an injury to Taegan Bourque the week before kept the NISH quarterback/safety out of Friday’s game, went down to an injury himself early in the third quarter, and New Iberia couldn’t match Barbe’s two second-half touchdowns. The Bucs also got a safety and a field goal for the final margin.

Hutson noted the injuries that kept players out of the game. 

“We had our starting quarterback out, starting strong safety out, both outside linebackers out, our leading tackler, who’s one of the outside linebackers, out, fullback is out, wide receiver is out,” Hutson said. “As someone said, we were playing on fumes tonight before the game even started.”

Despite starting six sophomores and a freshman on defense, the Yellow Jackets limited Barbe to 98 yards in the first half, and only 38 on the ground. NISH also recovered a Barbe fumble in the second quarter.

“First half we did a good job of keeping (the Barbe offense) off the field, but the second half we did not,” Hutson said. “Second week in a row where our starting quarterback goes out on the first series of the second half.”

Blake, who trained all week to run a read-option offense, was hurt when he got hit in the head on a carry on the third play of the Jackets’ first drive of the half. Hutson said he wasn’t sure if Blake suffered a concussion but said he would be under a concussion protocol, though the coach hopes he’s available next week at Comeaux. Michael Akins, who had started at QB for several games, was forced into duty at quarterback with the injury to Blake, though the gameplan had to be largely changed at that point.

“We had some stuff I thought maybe in the second half we could get (Blake) more involved in the gameplan. He’s one of our better athletes and I thought if we could just get the ball in his hands every snap that might give us a little bit of a jolt offensively,” Hutson said. “Then he comes out after the third play of the second half and that kind of takes the gameplan and you tear it up and go back to the base stuff.”

Akins was among several defenders who had outstanding nights against the Bucs even after being forced to play both ways in the second half.

“He played great on defense, he really did,” Hutson said. “He had a good sack and made several plays, but the defense — six sophomores and a freshman on defense, and they played lights out tonight. 

“The kicking game really killed us tonight. We didn’t do a good job of fielding punts, we had some short punts that gave them great field position, and for us to hold them to what, 26 points, it could’ve been a lot worse than that. Hats off to the defensive coaches and hats off to the defensive players because they could’ve let this thing get ugly and it didn’t.”

Outside of the 75-yard kick return by Blake and a 48-yard return by J’lon Ozenne on the Jackets’ next kick reception, New Iberia’s special teams did, indeed, struggle. A 19-yard punt set up a 31-yard scoring drive for the Bucs that made it 21-7 late in the third quarter. A bad snap on another punt resulted in a nine-yard loss and gave Barbe the ball at the NISH 18 late in the game, with the clock running out on the ensuing possession. Another punt hit a NISH defender in the back and was marked dead before it could roll farther upfield.

Hutson said a minor adjustment to the blocking scheme on the kick return team based on the film the coaches had seen of Barbe worked out just about as well as the NISH coaches thought it could.

“I told the guys I felt real good about it, I said if we get a body on a body and he doesn’t put it in the end zone, I think we’ll have something, and the first kickoff, we had a big, gaping hole right there, and he just got run down right there at the 20,” Hutson said. 

The kicker got just enough in Blake’s way as he ran past him to cause the returner to stumble, and that allowed Barbe to catch him. “If he didn’t he would’ve scored.”

Even at that, the Jackets had to go only 20 yards to break the scoring ice with J’lon Ozenne scoring untouched on a sweep from the 9 and Seth Landry kicking the point after for a 7-0 NISH lead.

Barbe got even on its second possession with a 10-yard touchdown pass from Davis Meche to Chandler Ware with 3:35 left in the opening period. After missing the first try for a PAT, Samuel Zahm got another attempt because of a roughing-the-snapper penalty and made his second try for a 7-7 score.

Barbe started to get its offense moving in the second half largely thanks to a run-pass option game that saw Meche go 12-for-17 for 141 yards on the night. A 25-yard pass to tailback Zene Chretien, who was wide open in the flat on the second snap of the second half, was followed by a 40-yard scoring run by Chretien to give Barbe the lead at 14-7 with 9:24 to go in the third quarter.

The short NISH punt later in the period set up an eight-play, 31-yard scoring drive that made it 21-7 after the three-yard pass from Meche to Aidan Smith and the PAT by Zahm.

A safety coming from a grounding penalty against NISH in the end zone and a 29-yard Zahm field goal acocunted for the points in the fourth quarter.

Chretien finished with 104 yards on 22 carries after netting just 23 yards on nine totes in the first half.

Blake paced New Iberia with 39 yards on 16 carries and Ozenne had 21 yards on five runs.

“Our kids battled and battled and battled,” Hutson said. “I’m real proud of ‘em. Pretty young team on both sides tonight. But we’re going to go back to work Monday and try to get better next week, and hopefully we’ll get some of the guys who were hurt back.”