Bulldogs beat Livonia in final regular-season game
Livonia – The Cecilia High Bulldogs set themselves up nicely for the postseason by taking care of business Friday night at Livonia.
The Bulldogs’ 26-20 road win may not have been pretty but it gave Cecilia the 2025 District 5-4A championship and a 5-4 regular season record.
That has CHS sitting pretty at No. 12 in the unofficial LHSAA Division II Non-Select power rankings, which the state’s prep athletics governing body uses to determine seeding for the playoffs.
If the Bulldogs remain in the top half of the 28-team DII bracket, they will open the playoffs at home in two weeks. Cecilia could not find a week 10 opponent when making its schedule before the season so the Bulldogs have an open date on the final regular-season week.
“It’s not how we wanted to finish but at the end of the day we were able to get the job done and set ourselves up,” CHS coach Cody Champagne said. “We were able to get a couple of kids healthy going into this week. Some of our main guys can kind of heal up going into the next two weeks.”
Cecilia showed a balanced offensive attack, rushing for 125 yards and throwing for 142 yards, while holding Livonia to 59 rushing yards. The Wildcats threw for 230 yards to keep the game close.
“You’ve got to give Livonia some credit,” Champagne said. “They did some things we hadn’t seen on film. They’ve got some players and they took it to us from the beginning. We gutted it out.
“They’re not a bad team. They’ve got a couple of guys that can hurt you.”
Cecilia got its first points on Deondre Briscoe’s 42-yard punt return in the first quarter but trailed 7-6 heading into the second period.
Jermaine Davis Jr. gave the Bulldogs the lead with a 14-yard scoring run and Aiden Landry tacked on the point-after.
Braylon Calais added a 15-yard scoring catch from Collin Dore later in the half for a 20-7 halftime lead.
Livonia pulled to within 20-14 in the third quarter but each team scored a TD in the fourth to keep the margin at one touchdown.
Jayden Lewis scored on a 10-yard throw from Dore in the final period for the Bulldogs’ final points.
Dore finished the day completing 16 of 19 pass attempts for 127 yards and the two touchdowns and led Cecilia with 63 yards rushing on nine attempts. Calais ran for 43 yards on 13 carries and completed one of his two pass attempts for 5 yards. He also had six catches for 51 yards, both team highs, and a TD.
Davis ran three times for 21 yards and a touchdown and added a five-yard reception. Lewis had 36 yards and a TD on four catches. Sophomore Layne Champagne completed one of two pass attempts for 10 yards.
Livonia quarterback Cam Carter ran for 55 yards and two touchdowns and completed 14 of 19 pass attempts for 230 yards and a touchdown.
Parris Hayes had five catches for 91 yards and a TD to lead the Wildcats and Chad “C.J.” Aguillard had five catches for 31 yards.
The Bulldogs were tested early in the season but rallied to go unbeaten in four District 5-4A games and finish the regular season with a winning mark (5-4).
“A new head coach, and we had to play some dogs right away,” Champagne said. “We learned a lot about ourselves. I needed to go through that as a head coach and as an offensive coordinator. I needed to play those games early to make us better for the back end of our season. You’ve still got some decent teams with some good rivalries at the back end of the season. Those teams are going to give you their best shot and our guys just played really, really well the back end of the season.”
The improvement the Bulldogs showed was a big point for the firstyear head coach.
“That was big and I think this week’s going to be even more important,” he said. “Even though we don’t have a game, we’ve got to get better another week. We have to get better this week even though we don’t have an opponent.”
Champagne said the Bulldogs will look at what teams that slowed down the CHS offense did in order to try to improve on those issues.
“You have to reflect on yourself and make sure you’re ready if that happens again,” he said.
The defense has improved as well under first-year coordinator Jason Faulk.
“Our defense kind of developed an identity and they’ve been playing lights out the last three or four games,” Champagne said. “A big thing is Jason kind of getting his feet under him. More of his style and mixing in what we did last year. The defensive staff did a great job of settling in and really put the pieces together, kind of like our offense. We looked at our guys and how we could get those guys better, and Jason and the defensive staff did the same thing.”
One thing the Bulldogs will emphasize is the effort and everyone playing as a cohesive unit on both offense and defense.
