– St. Martinville’s defense played a tremendous game against Class 5A Woodlawn of Baton Rouge on Thursday, but were on the field for much of the game and gave up a few big pass plays in a narrow 26-20 loss.
The Tigers held Woodlawn to negative rushing yards for the game and forced six fumbles, recovering four of them on the night.
But the visiting Panthers also completed 15 of 30 passes for 228 yards including touchdowns of 82 and 28 yards, and Woodlawn’s defensive front harassed SMSH relentlessly, holding the Tigers to 34 rushing yards and leading to five turnovers.
“I thought they played hard for four quarters,” SMSH head coach Garrett Kreamer said. “I give my team that. We just didn’t make the plays enough offensively enough to win it, when it comes down to it.
“We’ve just got to play better, got to execute. We’ve got to give them credit. They are good. Their defensive line completely shut down our run game. We became one-dimensional, and had to throw every play, and couldn’t do it. So that was the difference.”
The constant pressure of having to throw the ball and having consistent pressure on the quarterback led to four interceptions.
St. Martinville’s defense caused its own troubles for Woodlawn, which also saw a few high snaps to the quarterback lead to big losses and fumbles. The Tigers held QB Ricky Mitchell to 15-of-30 passing and threw him for 54 yards in losses on eight rushing attempts and sacks.
“I’m proud of those guys,” Kreamer said. “They sold out, played hard, played relentless and had some big plays, some big turnovers for us. I’m proud of them for all they’ve done. It’s a shame we couldn’t make a couple more big plays.”
St. Martinville got on the scoreboard first with Logan Bienvenu’s 30-yard field goal at the 2:52 mark of the first quarter after the Tigers forced a fumble on Woodlawn’s first possession.
The Panthers jumped ahead quickly, however, with an 82-yard pass from Mitchell to Cayden Randall, who outraced the defense up the Woodlawn sideline for a TD with 2:09 left in the first period.
Mitchell completed 15 of 30 pass attempts for 228 yards with two touchdowns. Randall had seven catches for 111 yards and a TD.
SMSH went up 10-7 in the second quarter on a one-yard touchdown run by quarterback Khyrie Francisco to cap a quick drive after another fumble recovery by the defense. Payton Nelson jumped on the ball for St. Martinville at the 1-yard line after a snap over Mitchell’s head.
Woodlawn again came right back to take the lead, moving 65 yards in seven plays with Mitchell hitting Trenton Bennett for 28 yards and the TD at the 5:05 mark of the second period. The point-after try missed but the Panthers led 13-10.
Bennett finished with three catches for 49 yards and a TD.
But that lead was erased on St. Martinville’s next possession, which saw Bienvenu kick a 21yard field goal with 27 seconds left in the half after a SMSH drive stalled at the 4-yard line.
Kreamer said that Woodlawn’s talented defensive line gave SMSH trouble.
“We tried to run it early and didn’t have much success,” Kreamer said. “So we had tried to slow them down with some hard counts and some screens. It worked at times but just wasn’t quite enough to get going and we had to force the ball downfield a little bit. Their DBs made plays when it was obvious pass situations. The quarter back didn’t have much time. You’ve got to tip your hat to them.”
Woodlawn surged ahead with a touchdown late in the third quarter when Randall carried in from a yard out on fourth and-goal with 2:45 left in the period. The failed 2-point try kept the score at 19-13.
The Panthers made it a 27-13 game early in the fourth quarter with a de fensive touchdown, forc ing a fumble in the end zone that was recovered for the score.
St. Martinville forced a short punt late in the fourth quarter that Christian Gedward snagged on the fly and returned 35 yards for a touchdown to pull SMSH to within 26-20.
The Tigers then recov ered an onside kick with Trevon Wiltz pouncing on the fumbled recovery attempt. But the Tigers failed to convert a first down on the possession and Woodlawn ran out the final 2:30 to hold on for the win.
Francisco completed 16 of 30 pass attempts for 100 yards and spread the ball around to seven different receivers.
Jamion James had four catches for 37 yards to lead the Tigers. Kervin Fonten ette had three receptions for 17 yards, Kristian Ba tiste had two for 24 yards and Ky’Lun Skipper had two catches for 14 yards. St. Martinville travels to New Iberia to face Westgate in a non-district game on Friday.
“We’ll take a couple of days off and then regroup on Monday,” Kreamer said. “We’ve got to find a way to score some points. It starts with me. I’ve got to figure this out and find a way to make us play better or make criti cal plays when we need them. It just seems one or two things off every time. We’ve just got to put it all together and stop shoot ing ourselves in the foot.”
