The Jeanerette High Tigers came into Thursday’s District 7-2A contest with Catholic High on a high.

JHS had beaten Loreauville for the first time in two decades, the offense was starting to click and Jeanerette was tied for first place in district.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, Catholic High (4-1, 1-0) entered the game a week after being taken to the woodshed in a 49-0 loss to Notre Dame and was looking for some redemption.

The Panthers scored 28 first-quarter points on the way to a 49-0 halftime lead and smothered JHS in a 63-6 win as CHS opened district play with a win.

“I told the coaches all day that last week was like eating something that leaves a real bad taste in your mouth and you can’t get a glass of water fast enough to get that taste out your mouth.

“We needed to come out here tonight and establish dominance early and that’s what we did. We had a feeling that it was going to go this way but you never know if it’s going to go that way or not.”

It went that way for CHS.

The Panthers took the opening drive of the game and went 63 yards in eight plays for a touchdown and a 7-0 lead.

Jeanerette responded with a drive that went three plays and minus-5 yards and turned the ball over on a fumble.

Catholic High then went 18 yards in four plays and led 14-0.

It only got worse from there.

For the first half, Jeanerette had two total yards, three punts and two fumbles. Catholic High had seven touchdowns.

“It’s just the word Catholic High,” said JHS coach Ananias Johnson, whose team fell to 2-3 on the season and 1-1 in district. “And my kids knew we were playing Catholic High. We just have some kind of block playing them.

“And it didn’t help that we only had one practice in two weeks (due to the weather). Catholic High is Catholic High. They believe what their coaches tell them. They have a system. They play with discipline and that’s a hard thing to go against.”

CHS amassed 411 yards of offense and held Jeanerette to 120, the vast majority of which came in the second half when the issue was already decided.and CHS had the reserves in the game.

But it was that dominant first half by the Panthers’ defense that went a long way to determining the outcome.

“I think that our starting defense held them to nine yards and one first down,” Indest said. “Your always proud of your defense when they give you a short field. 

“Jeanerette has some good players and we knew that we were going to have our hands full with them. But we came out on fire. It was a bad week to catch us after what happened.”

The CHS defense really put the screws to Jeanerette.

Christopher Landry had a fumble recovery and a blocked punt; Alex Guilbeau had a couple of tackles and just missed out on a sack; Armon LeBlanc ended up with a sack and Nicholas Borne had a fumble recovery as well.

“Our coaches came up with a great game plan which they do every week,” Guilbeau said. “We were ready for everything they ran and they didn’t throw anything at us that we didn’t prepare for and we executed the game plan.”

Jeanerette returns to action Friday on the road at Ascension Episcopal. Catholic High has its second straight Thursday night game next week at West St. Mary.