ST. MARTINVILLE — St. Martinville Senior High head coach Vincent DeRouen has mixed feelings about facing District 6-3A rival Kaplan in the first round of the Class 3A playoffs on Friday.

“The pro is that there’s not as much work on the Sunday before the playoff game compared to what you’d have if it was somebody unfamiliar,” DeRouen said.

“The con? You know how it is. It’s hard to beat somebody twice.”

In Week 5, St. Martinville outlasted the visiting Pirates 32-20.

“They’re familiar with us, also, and I’m sure they’re preaching the same things to their kids,” DeRouen said.

“The game could have went either way at the end last time. We wish it could be anybody other than a district opponent because we root for them when we don’t play them. But it is what it is.”

The 10th-seeded Tigers (6-2) were on the verge of pulling away from the 23rd-seeded Pirates (4-3) in the Week 5 contest, but the visitors kept scratching and clawing their way back into contention.

St. Martinville held a 20-8 lead in the second half, only to have the Pirates close the gap to 26-20 in the fourth quarter before junior defensive back Mandrel Butler returned an interception for a touchdown.

“We need to tackle better than we did in the second half last time,” DeRouen said. “And then penalty-wise, we shot ourselves in the foot. We had some long plays that got called back because of penalties which occurred due to lack of focus.

“We had some holding calls. Jumping offsides and holding. We’re not moving our feet as well as we should when we’re blocking. We kind of get lazy.”

St. Martinville has been running the ball effectively with Butler (12.1 yards per carry) and freshman Steven Blanco, who is averaging 7.7 yards per carry.

Sophomore receiver Harvey Broussard, who had 83 yards on three catches with two touchdowns in the previous meeting with Kaplan, is averaging 18 yards per reception.

Broussard also had a 50-yard TD catch nullified by a holding penalty in Week 5.

The Tigers are getting excellent pressure off the edge with defensive ends Ahman DeRouen (five sacks) and Quinton Butler (12 sacks).

Butler missed the previous Kaplan game because of COVID-19 contact tracing.

“With Quinton Butler out there, we’re hoping it’s going to be a lot different,” DeRouen said. “That’s our approach.

“Kaplan’s coach (Tank Lotief) is a hard-nosed person. They take after him. They have some gritty country boys who are going to play hard.”