Catholic High’s Mason Boutte (9) tackles Jeanerette runner Meiki Colbert (11) during a District 7-2A game Friday at CHS.

Catholic High pitched its third straight district shutout Friday, a sure indication of how well the Panthers are playing defense as the regular season winds down.

CHS celebrated senior night with a 43-0 win over a young Jeanerette squad, and the Panthers were able to play all 18 of their seniors in the game, coach Scott Wattigny said. Catholic High beat West St. Mary 42-0 two weeks ago and Houma Christian 69-0 last week, giving the Panthers a 154-0 margin over those three opponents.

CHS has allowed 85 points all seson, with 38 coming in a loss to De La Salle, currently ranked No. 1 in Class 3A, and 28 in a loss to Ascension Episcopal, which shares the District 7-2A lead with Loreauville. Those two teams were to play Friday but an outbreak of COVID-19 positives on the LHS football team has forced the Tigers to cancel their final two regular-season games.

“They’ve played well pretty much from the start of the year, I would say,” Wattigny said of his defense. “We’ve had some mishaps on some long-down situations, but they played really well.”.

Of course, the offense plays a role in the defense’s dominance as well. Catholic High rushed for 282 yards on 45 carries, helping keep Jeanerette off the field for much of the night. The Tigers finished with 51 rushing yards, and had only one possession longer than six plays. All three of Jeanerette’s drives that went six plays or more were in the second half.

“I think you have to look at snaps,” Wattigny said. “Our defense is averaging maybe 30-something snaps a game. That’s a well-rested group that gets to go out there and play real fast. There’s merit in talking about controlling the clock and those type of things. We’re doing that and we’re scoring points.”

“We played as best as we could,” Jeanerette coach Clifford Paul said. “Catholic High is a seasoned team, a veteran team. They understand what it takes to win, and we’re learning.”

The Tigers have shown improvement every game, Paul said, but are still young.

“I’m proud of them because I have a bunch of young kids,” he said. “I think I have five seniors out of 26 kids.”

The Tigers started out with 40 players, and Paul said the ones who have stuck it out will bring a lot of experience back the next few years.

“That’s the ones we’re going to live and die with,” he said. “I’m just proud of the kids. The support from my community, they come out, and we’ve got a bunch of good young kids.”

CHS took advantage of four Jeanerette turnovers on the night, getting their first touchdown after a fumble recovered by Russell Davis. Two carries by KK Reno moved the ball the necessary 11 yards to get into the end zone for a quick 7-0 lead just four minutes into the game.

“Inexperience” led to many of the turnovers, Paul said.

“My offensive line, I have everybody coming back,” he said. “One’s an eighth grader, two freshmen, two sophomores. My quarterback’s a sophomore. No. 11 (running back Meiki Colbert) is a sophomore. Two receivers are sophomores. And they never played before. I think the inexperience, not understanding the situation of the game, getting caught up in ‘we’re playing Catholic High,’ a big atmosphere, I think that’s what happened.

Reno added his second touchdown on the Panthers’ next possession, capping an eight-play drive with a 13-yard carry at the 3:08 mark. Nicholas Boutte again tacked on the point-after conversion.

Reno finished with a team-high 93 yards and three touchdowns on 14 rushes. Willie Regard added 63 yards on four runs.

After an interception by Cambridge Hall two plays later, CHS scored two plays into the second quarter on a three-yard run by Mason Boutte. Carson Stiles ran it in for the 2-point conversion and a 22-0 lead.

A Jeanerette punt led to another touchdown, this one a nine-yard run by Reno with 5:39 to go in the half, giving CHS a 29-0 halftime lead.

Jeanerette started the second half with its longest drive of the game, including a first down run by Andrew Mathews on a fake punt, but turned the ball over on downs. A CHS fumble gave the Tigers the ball again but the drive bogged down and a high snap on a punt led to a 31-yard loss and a fumble recovery by Davis in the end zone for a CHS touchdown to push the lead to 36-0.

Cole Broussard scored on a two-yard carry in the fourth quarter before the Panthers began substituting liberally.

About the only thing that Wattigny didn’t like was a lost fumble.

“We’ve got to stop turning the ball over,” he said. “I mean, gosh dog, we’re good for a turnover at least every game right now, and it’s frustrating because we have guys that know the importance of keeping the ball. But we’re on a 3-0 win streak right now, we’re over .500 now, so that’s great. We’ve got a great opportunity coming up this Friday against Franklin, so that’s great. It’s going to be interesting. It’s going to be fun. So we’ll try to go in with a lot of momentum into the playoffs. We’re treating every game like a playoff.”

Catholic High closes out the regular season at Franklin (4-3, 4-2) on Friday.

Jeanerette finishes the season at home against Ascension Episcopal (5-0, 4-0).