LOREAUVILLE — In a stunning turn, Loreauville High took advantage of two big plays — one in each half — to beat New Iberia Senior High 10-6 on the first night of the Iberia Parish Sugar Cane Jamboree held Thursday at LHS.

The first play occurred as time expired in the first half as Loreauville quarterback Calep Jacob hit twin brother Collin Jacob for a 39-yard Hail Mary touchdown pass. The ensuing point after score gave the Tigers a 7-6 lead at the break.

The second play happened late in the second half as Loreauville’s Jahari Williams recovered a NISH fumble deep in the Jackets territory and Logan Templet connected on a 33-yard field goal to give the Tigers a 10-6 lead with 3:23 left in the contest.

It was a lead Loreauville would not surrender as the Tigers finished off the upset of the Jackets in the jamboree.

“Don’t get me wrong, it was a big win and I’m excited we got the win,” Loreauville coach Terry Martin said. “But we have to go back and watch the tape. We have some things that we did right and some things that we have to work on as we get ready for next week.”

But for one night, Loreauville was king of the mountain as the Class 2A Tigers rallied from a 6-0 deficit to beat Class 5A NISH.

“They have some good looking kids,” Martin said. “They looked big on tape and even bigger in person. Their defense was able to put pressure on us all night and we knew that many of the routes we like to run weren’t going to be there because of the pressure they bring,

“Calep didn’t have time to throw at all. I’m hoping that down the road we won’t see too many people like that.”

NISH’s defense put the clamps on Loreauville all night. In fact, it was the Jacket defense that got the first score as Colby Williams picked off Calep Jacob and returned the ball 25 yards for the score and the 6-0 lead.

It wasn’t until the last play of the first half that Loreauville was able to get on the board.

“I’ve run that play on Thursday in practice for as long as I can remember,” Martin said. “In the past Collin was the backside single guy. When I moved Collin to be the point guy yesterday, both he and Calep complained. But I said let’s put it in and we’ll see.

“He ran right by the guy and went up and got it.”

It was a defensive-dominated game as neither offense got any traction.

Ware said that he had six starters out of the game and had backups both at running back and offensive line.

“When you have six starters out, that doesn’t help,” Ware said. “When you have inexperienced guy in, it doesn’t help and then when you have penalty after penalty, that’s not good.

“At the end of the day, it’s 10-6. but it’s not as bad as it looks. But unless we execute better, we’re not going to win many games like that.”

Both coaches agreed that the game needs to be put behind as the teams get ready for the season.

“We need to get better and execute better,” Ware said. “We got Breaux Bridge next week and they are going to be ready for us. We need to get ready for them.”

“It’s exciting to win but our kids know that this is just a jamboree game,” Martin said. “We have to look at the tape but we know that we need to get better for next week.”