Catholic High School and St. Thomas More are both coming off State Championship seasons and fans couldn’t have asked for a better Week 2 matchup. Both teams are considered top-10 teams in the state of Louisiana and they both gave each other a run while rising to the occasion.
Right out of the gate, these defenses showed up and told everyone that this would not be a high-scoring game. The Catholic defense forced a fumble on the game’s first drive leaving the opposing defense in a hole already. But STM stepped up and got a stop on 4th down to get their offense the ball back. This was how the first few drives of the game played out. At the end of the 1st quarter, after a few punts and turnovers from both sides, the score was 0-0.
The ice finally broke in the 2nd quarter but not until under a minute left in the half. After a consistent drive down the field by the Bears, RB Jayden Miles got into the endzone with 30 seconds left in the half for the game’s first points and put his team up 6-0 right before halftime.
Besides a field goal for Catholic in the early 3rd quarter, there was not much action from either team until STM got the ball back and finally put the ball in the endzone with RB Gabe Mocek finishing the drive off with just under 3 minutes in the 3rd. Their defense forced a quick 3-and-out and Cougars’ Mocek got the ball in his hands again on the second play of the drive and did not stop until he was in the endzone and had all of a sudden put his team on top for the first time of the game.
Starting the 4th quarter, it looked as if St. Thomas More was going to turn this game around as they moved the ball down the field one drive and then got the crowd back out of their seats with a 50-yard run to the house the next. After a big run by Catholic RB Rylan Parker, that got them down within the 10, the Cougars’ defense stepped up big holding them to a field goal and keeping this a 2-point game. It was up to their offense to go get points.
This turnover and then the huge touchdown grab by Amari Clayton was ultimately the turning point in this game. The defenses would step in again to control the game giving possession back and forth. STM got a stop with 2 minutes left and forced a Catholic punt with one last shot to win the game. But as they did all night, the Bears defense was able to generate another stop with the clock ticking down to 0 as the Cougars were left on the 30-yard line with no timeouts.
Catholic is now 2-0 with a win over Destrehan last week ending their 33-game regular season win streak and this week breaking STM’s 25-game overall win streak looks to keep stacking wins throughout their loaded season schedule. St. Thomas More moves to 1-1 after their season home opener but with high potential moving ahead in a good fight against a really good opponent. They look forward to next week against another top-10 opponent Acadiana.
Check out some pictures taken from the game by Jason Saucier.
Check out my postgame interview with Catholic HS Head Coach Hudson Fuller here.
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