If football is a battle, then Highland Baptist’s war Thursday night was derailed by a bunch of Commandos, the Acadiana Home School Association’s version of them.

Behind a bigger, stronger offensive line that blocked for a couple of bigger, stronger backs, the Commandos rushed for 339 yards and five touchdowns as Acadiana Home School blew past HBCS 50-8 in a Louisiana Christian School Athletic Association game.

Ross Johnson rushed for 140 yards and three touchdowns and Carter Berry added 97 yards and touchdown rushing and on a kickoff return as the Commandos improved to 4-1 overall while Highland Baptist fell to 2-3 at the halfway mark of the LCSAA season.

Advertisement

“They were real big, we knew that coming in,” said HBCS coach Artie Liuzza. “Number 32 (Berry) and 15 (Johnson) are fun to watch. They just kind of pile forward and go after it.”

It didn’t take long for the duo to show what they were capable of doing. On Acadiana Home School’s first offensive play of the game, Johnson bulled over the right side with Berry leading the way at blocking back. Fifty yards later, Johnson was in the end zone after blasting through at least five HBCS defenders and the Commandos led 8-0 after the 2-point conversion.

It was a scenario repeated several times over the course of the game as either Johnson or Berry would get the ball and plow through the line with five, six and sometimes seven Highland defenders grabbing on in an attempt to bring them down.

“That’s what we like to do,” said AHSA coach Spanky Arsement. “We get in the weight room and work out and get stronger so our line can block for our backs and occasionally use our big backs as blockers so some of our smaller, quicker backs can get in the offense.”

Johnson scored on runs of 50 and 25 yards in the first quarter and added a 33-yard TD run in the third. Berry scored on a 46-yard run in the second quarter and Chandler Fruge, one of the smaller backs in the AHSA offense, added a 48-yard run in the second quarter as the Commandos led 37-0 at halftime.

While Highland kept trying, the offense struggled and Zach Fleming threw three interception in the first half, including one that was returned 75 yards for an AHSA score by Ambrose Stevens.

“We had a lot of first-year mistakes tonight,” said Liuzza. “Especially on the offensive side of the ball. That’s to be expected and that’s okay and we’re going to get better from that.”

Even while the Commandos kept scoring, the Bears never gave up, which Arsement knew was going to happen.

“We saw them on film and we knew that they were a pesky bunch that was going to keep coming at us,” said the AHSA coach. “We were lucky that we could use our size to get them two or three yards off the ball on defense for our backs to get through.”

The Commandos added two more scores in the second half. The first came on Johnson’s third touchdown of the night, a 33-yard run in the third quarter, and the last score came in the final period after Highland got on the board in the final minute. Berry returned the ensuing kickoff 70 yards for an AHSA touchdown.

Highland’s only points came in the final quarter as Seth Woerner caught a pass from Fleming across the middle and broke away from the AHSA defenders to complete a 68-yard catch-and-run for a score. Hunter Mauney added the 2-point conversion for the Bears.

At 2-3 overall, Highland is no worse than tied for fourth place with Natchitoches Christian in the league at the halfway point and travels to Natchitoches next week for a game that will go a long way to determining playoff positioning.

“We would have liked to be 3-2 at this point but I feel that the first year mistakes really got to us tonight,” said Liuzza. “We beat Natchitoches once this year and we have to prepare hard and do it again.”

Seth Woerner had 26 yards rushing to lead Highland.

Fleming added 24 yards on the ground and finished the night 12-of-24 passing for 149 yards and a touchdown.