The Loreauville High School Tigers quickly shook off whatever rust they had from two weeks away from football, shutting out Jeanerette 50-0 in a Class 2A first-round playoff game Friday in their first action since Nov. 6.

LHS had to cancel its final two regular-season games after COVID-19 positive tests and held its first practice on Tuesday.

Loreauville coach Terry Martin said his team played well defensively, but the layoff of almost three weeks showed on offense, especially in the steady rain the teams played in for much of the night.

“Most of the night we had them in negative or long yardage situations,” Martin said, noting one play where Andrew Mathews, who had come in at quarterback, looked to be tackled in the backfield but broke away for a 15-yard gain or so after the LHS defense let up, thinking he had been stopped. “But other than that, defensively we played pretty well.”

Loreauville jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter on TD runs by Chris Anthony and Ethan Simon, then added two TDs by quarterback Calep Jacob covering 38 and 28 yards, a safety and a short TD run by Jaylyn James in the second quarter.

Ethan Simon and Anthony added second-half touchdowns.

Anthony had 102 yards and two TDs, Jacob had 88 yards and two touchdowns, Simon had two TDs and 34 yards and James had 55 yards and a TD as third-seeded Loreauville improved to 7-0 behind a 281-yard rushing day.

Jacob also threw for 52 yards.

“Offensively I’ve got to say we ran the ball better,” Martin said. “We knew we were going to struggle, both teams, with the handling of the ball because we played pretty much three quarters in a pretty good little downpour of rain.”

Loreauville turned the ball over three times, once on a good hit that caused a fumble, once on a fumble where the ball just popped out and then on an interception where Jacob made the right read and a good throw but a Jeanerette cornerback came off his receiver and made a great play to pick the ball off, Martin said.

“The three turnovers was kind of disappointing, at this point of the year especially,” he said. “We’ve talked about that all year, how important I think ball security is. We’ve got to clean that up. You can say part of that was the rain, but we actually had three balls that were dropped that should’ve been caught. If anything, our passing game has to get more consistent.”

LHS only returned to practice on Tuesday’s, and had to head inside when lightning hit Wednesday s the team was preparing to work on its third-and-long situations, Martin said, so the coming week will be important in working on those issues.

“Going into this week I think that’s really something we need to concentrate on,” he said. “We’ve still got to get better at running the ball, especially at this time of year when it starts cooling off. We’ve got to continue working on ball security, but offensively it showed that we had time off. We need to work on that.”

Loreauville held Jeanerette (3-5) to -16 yards rushing and -8 total yards.

LHS plays host to No. 14 Rosepine (5-2) at 7 p.m. Friday. The 14th-seeded Eagles beat No. 19 Northeast 50-28 on Friday.

“You can’t beat playing at home, not having to get on a bus, not having to travel, and just being familiar with all the surroundings, you’ve got that comfort level, you’re glad to be playing at home,” Martin said.

In other Class 2A games involving Teche Area teams, No. 16 South Plaquemines (5-3) edged No. 17 Franklin (4-5) 46-43, and No. 6 Kinder (62) shut out No. 27 Delcambre (2-6) 55-0.

In a Class 3A playoff game, No. 32 Erath (1-4) was scheduled to play at No. 1 Jennings (6-0) Saturday evening.