BATON ROUGE -- New Iberia Senior High and Delcambre both found out Sunday that being district champions doesn’t always help when determining seeding for the Louisiana High School Athletic Association playoffs.

Both Iberia Parish schools, the only ones in the Teche Area to qualify for the playoffs, will open the postseason on the road Friday night as NISH travels to Harvey on the West Bank to battle L.W. Higgins while Delcambre will head to the North Louisiana city of Olla to play LaSalle High School.

New Iberia Senior High, despite winning the District 3-5A championship with a 7-2 overall record, drew the 23rd seed in Class 5A and will play 10th seed Higgins (7-2) at Hoss Memtsas Stadium Friday night at 7 p.m.

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Admission to the game will be $8.

“It’s not really as uncommon as you would think,” said NISH coach Rick Hutson about being a champ and hitting the road. “I remember Lafayette High about six years ago was district champs and 8-2 and had to travel to Hammond in the first round.

“I’ve seen it happen quite a few times.”

The Delcambre Panthers, 7-2 overall and champs of District 8-A, drew the 19th seed in Class A and will travel to face the Tigers who are 8-2 overall and champions of District 3-A Friday at 7 p.m.

Admission to the game is $7.

“We’re going to go to LaSalle,” said DHS coach Darcy Delcambre. “I guess it’s about a 2 1/2-3 hour trip. We’re going against a team that has won three straight district championships, so it’s going to be a challenge.”

Both coaches were a little surprised with where they ended up in the playoffs.

“I was a little surprised that we didn’t move up,” said Hutson. “Normally, when you win you move up. It just so happened that on the last week of the season, we won but the nine teams above us also won so there was very little movement.

“Almost everybody stayed the same.”

“We thought that we would go in a little higher,” said Delcambre. “Looking at the draw we have we just have to go with it.

“It’s pretty comparable to what we’d thought we have. There were a few surprises like Basile beating Hamilton Christian so that put a little kink in the plans.”

Delcambre likes his draw, however.

“We feel like they are not much higher than us, power ranking wise,” said the DHS coach. “It’s someone that’s comparable to us.”

One good thing about the bracket is that NISH and Delcambre each would host a second round playoff game with a win Friday night.

“That’s what we’re looking at,” said Delcambre. “And if we win again, we have a chance to play at home in the third round.”

Delcambre said LaSalle likes to run a spread offense.

“We know the basics about them, now we have to go back and look at film and start game planning,” he said.

Hutson also likes his draw but does have one concern about the game.

“They have an artificial turf field,” said Hutson. “It’s the first time that we’ve played on turf and they are used to playing on it because it is their home field.

“But the coach says that it’s just like playing on grass and we won’t notice much of a difference. I certainly hope that’s the case.”

Tickets

New Iberia Senior High announced that advance tickets for Friday’s game will be sold Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 8 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. at the main office and from 2:30 p.m. - 6 p.m. in the boys’ gym.

According to assistant athletic director Greg Boudreaux, the cost is $8.

There will be no advance tickets sold to Delcambre’s game at La Salle according to DHS head coach Darcy Delcambre. Tickets are available at the gate.