If fans of the Catholic High football program feel like they got the short end of the stick on Friday night, they aren’t wrong.

Despite a dominant performance by the Panthers in the opening half resulting in a 10-0 lead at the break, poor field conditions seemed to have made the result all but guaranteed as neither team could move the ball well in the rain and mud.

“I thought we came out and played really well,” said CHS head coach Matt Desormeaux of his team’s performance in the first two quarters. “We executed as well as we could early on. We played well at times and our defense played lights-out. Offensively, we had some good things here and there but it just wasn’t enough.”

The Panthers struck first, scoring on the first possession via a 3-yard rush from junior RB Owen Morris. The CHS defense forced several turnovers to keep the VC offense quiet before Bennet Boudreaux’s field goal increased Catholic High’s lead to 10. VC scored to begin the second half, but a missed point after attempt left the Panthers with a narrow 10-6 lead.

Unfortunately for Catholic High, in the third quarter wound down, disaster struck. A tackle by Bennett Woodring on Vermilion Catholic QB Jonathan Dartez resulted in no whistle from the game officials. Dartez, who was brought down on his right side, rolled on top of Woodring and, after not hearing a whistle, popped right back up and continued downfield while a confused CHS team scrambled to give chase. The play resulted in an 86-yard touchdown run for a VC team that had been unable to move the ball well all night.

Desormeaux said that, while the officiating crew had been slow to blow plays dead all night, he is only focused on controlling what he can within the team to prevent another team from capitalizing on referee mistakes.

“Ideally, that type of thing doesn’t happen. We talk about playing to the whistle but this official group was slow on the whistle and they were like that all night,” he explained. “We stressed making it through the play, making it through the tackle and keeping them on the ground until you hear that whistle and obviously we didn’t do it there. Some of the kids said they heard a whistle but obviously they didn’t, so it’s disappointing.”

Catholic High suffered two additional losses against VC as injuries to junior Owen Morris (concussion) and senior Jake Wyman (collarbone) will see both players miss several weeks of action.

The loss moved CHS to 0-1 on the season ahead of a Week 2 matchup against Central Catholic on the road in Morgan City.. The Eagles narrowly defeated White Castle 27-24 in their season opener. Last season, Central Catholic lost 35-0 in the Division IV Select quarterfinals to eventual state champions Southern Lab after ending the regular season with a 7-3 record.