DELCAMBRE — Delcambre High School head football coach Artie Liuzza hadn’t had his team in a 7-on-7 competition since before COVID hit last year.

Thursday morning, that ended as the Panthers played host to Gueydan in a little impromptu 7-on-7 that lasted about an hour — with a surprise announcement at the end of the session.

“(Gueydan head coach Lance Myers) Coach Myers called me Wednesday night and said that he had a team drop out (of a 7-on-7 scrimmage) on him and we were happy to have him come over here and do this.”

It was a very impromptu thing and an interesting one at that since the Panthers and the Bears will play each other in the third week of the upcoming 2021 season.

Normally coaches wouldn’t do that unless it was in a tournament but Liuzza didn’t seem too concerned about it.

“It’s just a little 7-on-7 deal mostly to give the defensive backs some work against some decent receivers since our guys play both ways.”

Liuzza saw some good things out of the competition.

“It was the first time in a while that we’ve done this and I wanted to see our two quarterbacks coming up (Parker LeBlanc and Trevor Viator ) and seeing how they making reads with the defensive back.” the DHS coach said. “We have a new cornerback on defense whose learning the responsibilities or the position so it’s good for him to be out here to make those mistakes now before the season starts.”

The surprise came at the end of the session.

“Coach Myers and I spoke last night and Gueydan and Delcambre have a big rivalry dating back to when they were both in that big 1A district,” Liuzza said. “We’re rekindling that rivalry so we’re going to put a little trophy on the line this year and hopefully keep that rivalry going for many years.”

Liuzza wasn’t sure what the title of the game would be called or what the trophy would look like but he said that it would be something along the line of “The Highway 14 Trophy.”

“It’s just a little something that these guys can play for this year,” Liuzza said.