Catholic High running back Trey Henry (4) heads through a hole and into the endzone in the Panthers 48-18 win over Loreauville Thursday.

Soon after Catholic High School’s game against Loreauville on Thursday night in New Iberia, the Panthers’ head coach had some reassuring words for CHS fans.

“Well, you know, we really have been working on throwing the ball,” Brent Indest said, confidently. 

Those were his first words after the Big Red evened its record at 3-3 and, more importantly, 3-0 in District 7AA. The veteran head coach imperceptibly shrugged his shoulders, fully aware that nary a pass was attempted by CHS in a 48-18 romp over the Tigers.

Air Indest just might be a lethal passing attack, one that never gets off the ground.

For sure, it was grounded in the latest game rescheduled because of the forecast for rain on Friday. CHS rushed for 440 yards, 240 of them on 24 totes by the kingpin in the Wing T, senior fullback Trey Henry, who operates behind multi-threat junior quarterback Trey Amos.

Amos ran for 138 yards and four touchdowns on 12 carries while sophomore wingback KK Reno, also a receiving threat, added 52 yards on nine carries behind a bulldozing offensive line led by seniors Marshall Schexnayder, a center, John Larive, a tackle, and Jean Paul Boudreaux, a guard. Henry scored three TDs.

“When you’re really ramming it down somebody’s throat like that, it’s really satisfying,” Indest said in explanation about the lack of aerial fireworks.

Two Treys and a KK trumped a Zy Alexander and a Logan Girouard in Game 6 of 2020. While there was a No Fly Zone over Panther Stadium when CHS had the ball, it was lifted when Alexander, Loreauville’s talented senior quarterback, and Girouard, junior wide receiver, were on offense as the Tigers threw for 295 yards, including 73- and 59-yarders and two 42-yard completions.

Throw is all the visitors could do against the CHS “D’s” version of the Maginot Line. LHS mustered 13 yards on the ground.

“Our defensive effort was solid. Whenever you make a team one-dimensional … We completely took away the run. Eventually you get a pass here or there but our front seven or eight guys just really dominated,” Indest said. ‘I’ve got to give credit to (assistant coaches) Craig Brodie and David Jordan. After Vermilion Catholic, I let them do a majority of the game planning the last two weeks. They did a great job.”

As painful and disappointing as the loss to an intra-parish rival was, Loreauville head coach Terry Martin said better days are ahead for Loreauville, which slipped to 3-3, following its season pattern of W-L-W-L-W-L.

“This team,” Martin told his players as he pointed to the team in the other end zone, “they made us better tonight.”

Later, he said, “They’re a very good football team. 

Their quarterback is so fast and the other two are special. The biggest thing about this (CHS) offense is you’ve got to play assignments and on the second play (actually, first of the game after an offside penalty against the Tigers) we didn’t play our assignments.”

Amos made the Tigers pay for that oversight on first-and-5 from the CHS 38. 

He ran around left end and didn’t stop until he was in the end zone 62 yards later for a 6-0 lead, soon to be 7-0 on sophomore placekicker John Theriot’s PAT.

The Tigers gave CHS a short field on the ensuing possession. On fourth-and-6 at the midfield stripe, Loreauville’s punter fielded a low snap and his knee touched the ground at the LHS 37.

Henry ripped off a 29-yard touchdown run four plays later on fourth-and-2 and, suddenly, it was 14-0. 

The lead ballooned to 21-0 on his 1-yard run about four minutes into the second quarter. Then Amos kept again and scored on a 34-yard run 5:47 before halftime and CHS led, 28-0.

Then Loreauville’s Ethan Simon got rid of the goose egg on his team’s side of the scoreboard. 

He fielded the ensuing kickoff at his own 2 and outran the Panthers on a 98-yard kickoff return for a touchdown at 5:26in f the second quarter.

Simon ran into a swarm of would-be tacklers around the LHS 35, bounced out and to his right, turned on the jets and beat the kicker, the last line of defense, as he raced down the far sideline to cut the deficit to 28-6 after a blocked PAT.

However, another miscue on a punt cost the Tigers. Loreauville’s “D” forced CHS to punt from the LHS 44. But Panthers’ senior punter Avery Guidry went down in a heap and the roughing the punter penalty gave CHS new life at the LHS 29.

Amos kept again and scored on a 1-yard run to make it 35-6, CHS, less than a minute before intermission.

“I mean, man, obviously, we started off the worst way we could have, a penalty on the first play,” Martin said, noting the two punt muffs hurt followed in that vein.

The Tigers’ Alexander made his presence felt in the second half. A 73-yard bomb and his subsequent 2-yard plunge up the middle on the first series of the third quarter cut the deficit to 35-12.

After Henry scored on a 5-yard rush up the gut and Amos tallied on a 1-yard leap over the top, giving the happy hosts a 48-12 edge, Alexander caught a pass from sophomore quarterback Calep Jacob and turned it into a 42-yard scoring strike for LHS at 1:51 in the fourth quarter to make it 48-18.

“If he’s not one of the premier players in the area, I don’t know who is,” Martin said about Alexander.

Indest, meanwhile, has some candidates of his own.

“Peter LeBlanc last year killed people when he wasn’t touching the ball. 

“Reno did that tonight. They doubled him to make sure we couldn’t throw the ball to Reno. That enabled us to run the ball,” the winning coach said.

“Really, our goal(s) of the game was not to turn it over and not to give up the big play. Giving up the kick return and giving the post route to Zy were pretty disappointing. Other than that, we played clean.”

CHS will play host to West St. Mary this week while Loreauville entertains Delcambre.