After last season’s 35-34, nailbiting victory, the St. Amant Gators once again hosted the George Washington Carver Rams to open up their season. It wasn’t a close game this time around, as St. Amant picked up a 45-20 victory. Both teams played well in some aspects, but in the end, St. Amant pulled away early and although Carver made some plays down the stretch, it was too little, too late. St. Amant scored on three of their first four possessions and continued to find the end zone with ease.
For the Gators, it was slow, methodical drives that allowed them to march down the field. There was some doubt after starting quarterback Cooper Babin left the game with an appearant shoulder injury on just the second play of his first start. Senior Chase Kelley came in and played exceptionally well, completing 12-19 passes for 189 yards and a pair of scores, and also scrambled for an additional 18 yards. One touchdown pass was a dot to Timothy Johnson Jr., and the other being a 24-yarder to Easton Jarreau.
Jarreau also handled all kicking and punting duties for the Gators. He routinely sent kickoffs into the endzone and converted a six extra point attempts with ease, and went 1-1 on field goals.
On the ground for St. Amant, Kyron Craft and Tyree Williams scored twice each. Craft’s scores came on 5 and 7-yard runs, and Williams’ came on 19 and 53-yard runs. The ladder finished with exactly 100 yards as well, on 9 touches. On defense for St. Amant, senior defensive lineman Jaiyh Joseph was all over the place. He recovered a fumble early in the second quarter and constantly put pressure on Perkins. He was perhaps their most valuable defensive player last night.
For Carver, snapping issues plagued them and held the offense back. It seemed that on just about every play, the ball was snapped low and ended up on the ground, and the quarterback would have to either jump on it, or scoop it and run for his life. Jadan Verrett started at quarterback, but from the late first-quarter onward, it was Richard Perkins Jr. running the show for the Rams. Perkins started out at wide receiver, then switched to quarterback, and threw for a 245, ran for 90 yards, and caught multiple passes and tallied 68 receiving yards, adding up 403 total yards, 96% of Carvers total of 419 for the game. Perkins scrambled for a 97-yard touchdown in the second quarter, but ended up with only 90 yards due to all the sacks from bad snaps he endured. Perkins threw a pair of touchdown passes, one to Edmonta Reid and one to Tory Pinkney. taking the bulk of the carries for Carver was Joshua Amacker, with Naamon Landry picking up some of the share.
St. Amant will host B.T. Washington in the second of five-straight home games to open the season. Carver will host East St. John next week in New Orleans.
