Catholic High, Westgate advance to round two

Two of Iberia Parish’s high schools advanced to the second round of the football playoffs as the Westgate High Tigers beat Mandeville and the Catholic High Panthers edged West Feliciana Friday night. The four other high schools in Iberia Parish, Delcambre High, Jeanerette High, Loreauville High and New Iberia Senior High, were unable to best their opponents in round one.

Catholic High 35 - West Feliciana 33

West Feliciana’s Adrian Webb missed a 34 yard field goal to the left with 30 second left in the game as Catholic High rallied from a 21-7 halftime deficit to win 35-33 in the first round of the Class 3A playoffs.

Panther quarterback Taylor Bullock completed 17 of 28 pass for 256 yards and two touchdowns and ran nine yards for a third score.

“We made a change at halftime and decided to run the ball a lot more, which opened up the passing game and allowed us to come back,” said Panther head coach Craig Brodie.

Two of West Feliciana runningbacks topped the 100 yard mark Friday. Roberto Johnson had a 186 yards and two touchdowns on 12 carries and Deshawn Morrison ran for 125 yards and three touchdowns for the Saints.

Westgate 21 - Mandeville 14

Westgate’s Duvall Jackson intercepted a pass and returned the ball 32 yards for a touchdown midway through the fourth quarter to lead the Tigers to a 21-14 victory over Mandeville in the first round of the Class 5A playoffs Friday night at Sidney Theriot Stadium in Mandeville.

Jackson, a sophomore defensive lineman, tipped John Wenzel’s pass in the flat, caught it in midair and ran untouched for the winning points with 6:12 left in the game.

The Skippers (7-4) led 14-6 at the half on the strength of Wenzel’s 120 yards passing. Wenzel completed 10 consecutive passes to end the first half and extended the streak to 13 in the third quarter.

But the Tigers (7-4) blitzed on nearly every play in the final two periods, which resulted in three interceptions. Wenzel finished 25-of-40 for 290 yards and four interceptions. The Skippers were also held to 38 yards rushing.

Central 56 - NISH 21

Fourth-seeded Central scored at the end of the first half and added four third-quarter touchdowns to blow open a close game against New Iberia Senior High, breaking away for a 56-21 win in the first round of the Class 5A football playoffs Friday night.

New Iberia had closed to within 21-14 on Jordy Joseph’s quarterback keeper with just under four minutes remaining in the first half, then recovered an onside kick.

But the Yellow Jackets could not move the ball from near midfield after recovering the kick, and Central drove for a TD with less than 50 seconds to go to make it a 28-14 game at halftime.

The Wildcats (10-1) took advantage of a short field to score four times in the third quarter, going 49 yards, 24 yards, 33 yards and 27 yards to push their lead to 56-14 by the 6:34 mark of the period.

Two of those touchdowns came after short punts, one after a fumble recovery and one after New Iberia (7-4) turned the ball over on downs.

“They didn’t start anywhere in the second half on their end of the field,” said New Iberia coach Rick Hutson.

Desirae Sam doubled New Iberia’s rushing total on his 67-yard TD run in the fourth quarter. Sam finished the night with 74 yards on six carries. Joseph was 13-for-24 for 105 yards passing.

Opelousas Catholic 29 - Loreauville 12

Opelousas Catholic’s Vikings ran into Tiger Stadium and ran, ran, ran, literally, until they ran out of town with a convincing 29-12 Class A bi-disrict playoff victory over Loreauville High.

A stable of OCHS running backs pounded away behind a sizable offensive line to rush for 283 yards and raise the Vikings record to 8-3. Defensively, the visitors took away Loreauville’s bread-and-butter rushing attack — limiting the Tigers to less than 70 yards on the ground — and posted a shutout for three quarters before freshman wideout Jermaine Antoine turned to passes into long touchdowns for Loreauville.

Antoine caught a 67-yard scoring pass from junior quarterback Ross Durke with 8:55 to play to cut the deficit to 16-6. After OCHS scored twice, including a touchdown with less than a minute left that rubbed some black-and-gold faithful the wrong way, Antoine was on the receiving end of a 57-yard scoring pass from Durke at 24.3.

The Tigers recovered the onside kick but Durke threw his third interception four plays later on fourth-and-7 from the OCHS 46.

The Jeanerette Senior High Tigers came up short in its first playoff appearance in several years. The final score had Springfield High on top 45-12.

In Class 1A, the Delcambre High Panthers were downed by Westminster Christian Academy 40 -7.