Loreauville, Westgate claim big wins

Published 7:30 am Sunday, September 26, 2021

Loreauville High School head football coach Terry Martin knew his team would be in for a tough battle with Franklin Senior High after a big, emotional win against Kinder the week before.

And the Hornets, led by quarterback Zariq Perry, did everything they could to upset the unbeaten Tigers in the District 7-2A opener for both teams before Loreauville (4-0, 1-0) held on for a 47-42 win Friday night at JC Dry Stadium in Franklin.

Martin said that though the coaches tried to make sure their players weren’t too invested in the Kinder game — the Yellow Jackets knocked Loreauville out of the playoffs in 2020 — he could tell a lot of them were still thinking about that game the year before heading into last week’s game.

“We knew and we told the kids, first of all, going into the game, I saw it coming a mile away,” Martin said. “I’ve gone through this several times where you win a big game, and I’ve seen LSU struggle with it, I’ve seen Alabama struggle with it — win something big and it’s so hard to come back the next week and get them ready to play, get them to understand how important this next game is, and when you factor that in — emotionally I knew it was something they were going to really be ready for, and then we won in the fashion that we did (41-8 on the road), and when you factor in that we didn’t have school Thursday or Friday, I could see this coming a mile away that we were not going to play well. It’s almost impossible to fix sometimes.”

Perry seemed almost unstoppable, rushing for 189 yards and three touchdowns and throwing for 95 yards and another TD for the Hornets (1-2, 0-1).

“We told them how good he was, how fast he was,” Martin said. “I think the thing we didn’t anticipate was just how strong (he was) and just his balance was unbelievable.”

Though some of the issues were from players not being in the right spots, the coach said that probably didn’t make a difference overall given Perry’s ability and drive. Franklin always seems to play at a higher level when they play Loreauville at home, he said, and the Hornets were very ready to play the game.

“Some of the plays he made it wouldn’t have mattered if we would’ve had kids in perfect position, we weren’t tackling him. He was that good,” Martin said.

Martin said in thinking back over the years to a career that included coaching 2003 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Domanick Davis at Breaux Bridge for four years (who changed his name to Williams in 2006), and what Perry did was one of the best performances the coach has seen in a long time.

“Just the way he took that team on his back and he refused to go down, he never stopped playing hard, he had complete control over everything that was going on,” Martin said. “When we got together in the end zone (after the game), normally I have a few comments, we say our team prayer and we get on the team bus. I said look, let’s say our prayer and get the hell out of here before they give the ball to No. 3 again. We’re still trying to tackle him.

“He broke so many tackles where we had guys on him. I’m not exaggerating, I’d say at least 10, 12 times, they’d have a bad snap where the ball went over his head, we had three kids around him 10 or 12 yards behind the line of scrimmage, and it’s a 40 yard gain (as an example). Crazy, crazy things. You have to respect and admire how hard he played. Just a tremendous, tremendous athlete.”

Loreauville quarterback Calep Jacob also had an outstanding night, completing seven of nine passes for 195 yards and three touchdowns and rushing for 120 yards and two TDs on 20 carries. Ethan Simon contributed three touchdowns — and had another called back because of a penalty — for the Tigers. Simon had two catches for 108 yards, both for touchdowns, and ran for 65 yards and a TD on 11 carries. Collin Jacob also had three catches for 50 yards and a touchdown.

Calep Jacob played well for the second straight game, Martin said, despite throwing his first interception of the season on what wasn’t really a terrible throw.

“I didn’t realize until after when we did our film work (Saturday) morning how many carries he had,” Martin said. “But based on the way the defense they played, it was all read plays, it wasn’t called for him to keep the ball, but the way that they lined up it just kind of ended up that he had to keep a lot of those balls, so he had more carries than I thought. It was a big part of the win, obviously.”

Simon also had a phenomenal game, he said.

Now the Tigers will look to learn from the game and move on to a short week against Kaplan Thursday at home. It didn’t matter what the Tigers did against Franklin, Martin said, Perry was not going to be stopped.

“We were fortunate to win,” Martin said. “I think we played a much better offensive game the week before. We didn’t play our best offensive game, but fortunately we scored enough points to win and hold on. When we went in at halftime (with the game tied at 28 all), what we were doing with four defensive linemen, and they were spreading us out, our linebackers were spread out too much, and we ended up going to a three-man front, putting three linebackers in and just pretty much they spied the quarterback and it still didn’t matter, but at least we held them to I think two scores in the second half. He was something else.”

Loreauville was coming off a very physical game heading into Friday’s game, and though the Hornets were a spread team, they also were physical. The Tigers have a few starters who are sore coming off those two games, and that’s a concern.

“And now we have to play a team that’s going to run the ball and just try to ram it up the middle repeatedly,” Martin said. “They have a very physical running back. He’s had several 200 yard games already. He’s not flashy. I think I said it when we played Kinder — it’s really hard to play a team that’s satisfied with getting three or four yards a pop. They just keep pounding it. They’re going to go for it on fourth down.”

Westgate 39, St. Martinville 21

Thursday night at WHS, Westgate High School (3-1) got a big game from quarterback Jordan Doucet and another strong special teams effort to hand St. Martinville (3-1) its first loss of the season.

“We’re starting a little quicker, executing a little better,” WHS coach Ryan Antoine said. “We don’t want to peak too early, but we’re starting to get better every game. Guys are playing harder. I thought we had some mental lapses against West St. Mary (the week before) where we scored early and then kind of shut it down. I think we’re doing a better job of playing well in all aspects of the ball.

“Special teams really has been our key. Coach Randall Antoine, he’s our special teams coordinator, has been doing an amazing job of using our weapons for that. We took another kick back this week with Jordan Doucet.”

Doucet, in addition to the kick return, ran for a couple of touchdowns and threw for two TDs.

“He had an amazing game,” Antoine said. “He’s stepped in real well in that quarterback role with Brennan (Landry) being out (after an injury in the first week against Lafayette Christian).

“Jordan is a four-year starter for us. He took his offseason real serious for us this year. I think him being a state champion this year, and the last school year, helped as well. It gave him that confidence that he can do anything. He never shied away from playing quarterback (though he normally plays wide receiver). I think we did a good job in the offseason as an offensive staff getting Jordan and Danny (Lewis) ready in case Brennan would be out. So when Jordan stepped in that second quarter against West St. Mary, we’ve kind of taken off since then.”

St. Martinville has good players and Vincent DeRouen does a good job of coaching them up, Antoine said.

“We did a good job of coming out there and being ready,” Antoine said. “We told the kids this is a team that’s undefeated and we’ve got to come out here and be ready to roll. I think we piggybacked on our win the previous week against New Iberia and came out there hitting on all cylinders. We actually scored on the first play and got it called back. Our kids didn’t panic. They called two of Jordan’s touchdowns back, just off some holding calls or whatever.”

The coaches work with the players on being resilient, and with the strong leadership of the seniors the team didn’t panic and continued to execute.

Derek Williams had a monster game on defense with 16 tackles, the coach added.

“St. Martinville was doing a lot with their quarterback, and forcing us to use our safety in the run game, and Derek came down and pretty much nine out of 10 times was making big plays for us,” Antoine said. “He’s starting to step into his role of being that leader on the defense and the best player on the field.”

Steven Antoine also had his third straight game rushing for more than 100 yards for WHS, and the offensive line is getting better each week. Westgate isn’t where the it needs to be but continues to get better, Antoine said.

The Tigers face a strong month of challenges coming up with a game at Lake Charles College Prep, then games against St. Thomas More, St. Augustine and Teurlings Catholic.

“We’ve got a strong month ahead of us that’s going to tell us where we are as a team,” Antoine said.