The Opelousas Catholic Vikings were able to win in an incredible offensive performance against Catholic Pointe Coupee. With tonight’s 56-32 win, the Vikings move to 7-3 to finish their season. On the other hand, the Hornets received their first loss tonight and finish their season 9-1.
Tonight was a shootout, no way around it. The best players from both teams showed up to play tonight and completely filled up the stat sheet. This was a game where both teams had massive momentum swings, but Opelousas Catholic was able to weather the storm and come out on top in a massive game for them as underdogs.
In the first drive, the Vikings threw a pick-6 to Luke Vosburg, but this was met with an immediate score in return from the connection between WR Roderick Tezeno and and QB Kross Gillen, who both played phenomenal all night. After a quick turn of events, the Vikings got the ball back up again and threw a deep TD to Roy Henry to put them up 12-6.
This was a high scoring first quarter, and the Hornets were able to drive right down the field in a handful of plays and tie the game with a QB sneak from Jude Morrison. This TD was met with a rushing TD from Rowen Bergeron to put the Vikings back on top to end the 1st.
After that crazy first quarter, the momentum for both teams died down and there wasn’t another score until right before halftime, where the Hornets threw an interception and Kross Gillen was able to sneak into the end-zone after to take his team into halftime with a 26-12 lead.
The 3rd quarter featured an insane turn of events similar to the 1st quarter, where the two teams traded score after score. However, the Vikings kept scoring. They were able to score 23 points in the 3rd quarter alone. This was assisted by Roderick Tezeno, who had two in that quarter, and 4 during the entire game. That said, out of halftime, the momentum favored the Hornets, as they were virtually able to score two TDs in the span of about 2 minutes and were able to tie the game back up. These TDs were scored by Parker Jewell and Carter Devilier.
As the game was now tied up, the Vikings scored their 23 straight points to put the game away before the 4th quarter had even started. The connection between Roderick Tezeno and Kross Gillen continued to be a problem for the Hornets along with massive contributions on the ground from Rowen Bergeron.
As stated, the big players all showed up to play tonight on both sides. For Opelousas Catholic, WR/CB, Roderick Tezeno had an amazing game, totaling 4 TDs, over 100 yards recieving, along with 3 key PBUs. WR, Roy Henry had a TD, RB, Rowen Bergeron had a rushing TD, QB, Kross Gillen had 6 total TDs and 3 interceptions, and John Parker Trahan, who had a key interception in a big moment of the game.
After the game, I was able to talk to Coach Matherne
“Believe it or not, Xs and Os wise and execution wise, not our best, but that was hands down our most gritty and physical performance. You know, we knew going into the game, these guys were extremely physical and we had to match it, and our guys don’t get credit sometimes because we like to pass the ball and being physical, but I was extremely impressed the way our defense played tonight and I’m just extremely proud of the boys right now.”
Coach Matherne when asked how he thought his team played tonight
“We’ve been battle tested. We’ve seen these guys and we really don’t pay attention to rankings. We just put on the film and our guys knew they could beat them. So they were confident coming into the game, so records, really we don’t talk about it too much. I know they know, but it really wasn’t a factor going into this game.”
Coach Matherne when asked how he felt coming into tonight’s game playing an undefeated team
“Look, if they can give the same kind of gritty effort, warrior-like approach and performance they did tonight, they will do what it takes to win. It wasn’t pretty tonight. We had some key injuries go down. Key guys go down, luckily they’re going to be good but we had some guys go down. We moved some guys into spots they normally don’t play in, but they stepped up, so we did what it took to win, and that’s what I want moving forward.”
Coach Matherne when asked what can we expect to see in the playoffs
After tonight’s game, both of these teams can expect to be competing for a state championship in the playoffs in the next few weeks. Opelousas Catholic were able to finish their season 7-3, looking to take that momentum into the playoffs. Meanwhile, Catholic Pointe Coupee looks to recover from this loss as they play their first playoff game.
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