NEW ORLEANS — Over the past two seasons, the rivalry between Catholic High and Notre Dame has reached a crescendo. Thursday night’s state championship game in the Mercedez-Benz Superdome was the final act of a four-part play.

In 2017, Notre Dame won the regular season contest 37-0 but lost in the Division III state title game 33-16. This season, Notre Dame won the regular season contest when the Pioneers came to New Iberia and won 49-0 and Notre Dame head coach Lewis Cook was wondering if history would repeat itself.

“Having won the Week 4 game a year ago and then getting whooped pretty good this time last year, and then to go down Week 4 and get a big win again, you have to wonder if the gris gris is on again,” Cook said.

And after Catholic High quarterback Trey Amos went 83 yards for a touchdown on the first play of the game, Cook couldn’t help but wonder if it was happening again.

“I’m thinking preparation is overrated,” Cook joked. “We stopped that play a thousand times during those two weeks (leading up to the game) and there they go.

“The guy’s a tremendous athlete. We knew he would have his moments. We just didn’t know it would be the first moment of the game.”

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Both coaches had their own ideas about what the turning point of the Division III title game was.

Cook said he thought it was the opening drive of the second half. Indest said he believed it was his team failing to score right before halftime.

“That opening drive of the third quarter was the biggest part,” Cook said. “In fact, we were going to defer to the second half if we won the coin toss. We had a 21-7 lead at halftime but we knew that if we could get the ball in the third quarter and get a score and go up 28-7, it would put a lot of pressure on them and help us out.”

With CHS trailing 21-7 in the second quarter, the Panthers had a drive going right before halftime but a fourth-and-two pass from the ND 31-yard line fell incomplete.

“I think that if the score would have been 21-14 at halftime, things might have turned out differently,” CHS coach Brent Indest said. “We had an uphill climb against them anyway.”

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Catholic High senior Peter LeBlanc ended his prep career in the state championship game and performed well with six catches for 67 yards and one rush for 12 yards.

The UL Lafayette commit reflected on wrapping up his career in the CHS red and white.

“I’m going to miss playing with these guys and the guys in the locker room,” LeBlanc said. “It’s been a fun ride and I wish it would have ended a little differently.”

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For a playoff game or a state title game, it was a fairly quick final between Catholic High and Notre Dame.

The Division III championship was slated to kick-off at 7 p.m. but the Divison IV championship between Lafayette Christian and Ascension Catholic went longer than anticipated so the Division III game started at 7:22 p.m. It finished at 9:44 p.m., a total time of 2 hours, 22 minutes, not much longer than a normal regular season contest would last.

Notre Dame and CHS combined for 78 rushing plays and only 24 passing plays and with only 10 total penalties in the contest, the game went by quickly. Each half lasted just over one hour.