The first half of last week’s Senior Night game against Northside will be 24 minutes the Tigers hope to forget.

With all three phases of the game posing challenges for Westgate, the Vikings shocked everyone by leading at the halftime break, 13-6, over a Tigers team that had been slowly building up steam since an injury crisis set in earlier in the season. 

According to Westgate head coach Ryan Antoine, his team struggled to find a rhythm against an unpredictable offense from the Vikings. 

“They were out there playing unconventional football, so we had to get relaxed and play something different,” Antoine said. “(Northside) was out there with guys running in off the sideline and, honestly, just playing backyard football. That’s tough to adjust to, especially with a young team, so we just had to tell our guys to get foot to foot and pound them between the A and B gaps and go home.”

Northside QB Jaylin Williams scored twice in the first half, first from a 19-yard touchdown pass to Javante Broussard midway into the first quarter and again in the second quarter after finding Taiten Arceneaux in double coverage in the endzone. Westgate scored a touchdown of their own in the first half courtesy of a five-yard rush by junior DB Trandin Benjamin, but a failed two-point conversion kept the Tigers held to six points in the opening half. 

Westgate senior Dy’Traevous Lively said that Westgate’s history with the Vikings and the Senior Night festivities may have led to the team taking Northside too lightly in the first half. 

“We took the team too lightly,” Lively said. “We didn’t go out with as much energy as we should have.”

The halftime changes from Westgate were immediately noticeable. Passing failures in the first half stalled drives and allowed Northside to dictate the tempo of the game. In the second half, Westgate turned the intensity up and pounded the ball downfield against a helpless Vikings defense. 

“We put our best guys in the backfield and just blew them off the ball,” Antoine said. “The frustrating thing is that we got caught up in the undisciplined stuff and going back and forth with them. We have to be a better team than that because we have bigger aspirations than that. We can’t go back and forth with teams that don’t have the same goals as us.”

Lively led the charge for the Tigers on both sides of the ball, scoring twice on the ground in the second half and returning a fumble 84 yards. Senior RB Tavias Gordon added two touchdowns of his own, scoring off a 56-yard rushing TD in the third quarter and from a 52-yard rush in the fourth. 

“The whole defense relies on me and my energy relies on them,” Lively said of his performance. “We play off of each other, so as long as I keep up my end, we can win another state championship.”

Gordon ended the night with 178 rushing yards and two touchdowns from 18 carries. Senior Davian Jackson (7-71), freshman Caemon Crockem (4-60), junior Trandin Benjamin (6-35, 1 TD) and senior Gavin Hebert (10-36) all put in crucial performances on the ground for Westgate. Chance Archangel and Evan Bryant each recorded one sack against Northside. Trandin Benjamin had two interceptions for 23 yards.

The win kept Westgate’s winning streak alive and moved the team to a  6-2 record on the season. The Tigers’ final game of the regular season will be against District 4-4A newcomer Comeaux (0-9, 0-5). 

Losses to St. Thomas More and Teurlines have left Westgate in the bottom half of the Non-Select Division I standings. Currently ranked as the No. 19 seed, the Tigers will likely have to travel for their first round playoff game, something Antoine said isn’t new for his team. 

“Good teams have to win on the road, that’s nothing new for us,” he said. “I’ve been at Westgate since 2005 and that’s what we’ve been doing. I’ve been here when we had to play every game on the road as a 28 or 29 seed, but once you get to playoff ball, anything goes. Where you play is where you play, we just need to do a better job. Being an undisciplined football team in Week 9 is not a good story.”