Opelousas – The Breaux Bridge Tigers lost their football season opener at Opelousas Catholic on Friday, 29-8, but the Tigers gave some encouraging signs to head coach Tyler Pierce in the loss.
“Defensively, we shut them out in the first half and got us a safety,” Pierce said. “Two-nothing at half is about as good as you can ask for defensively. We made some changes. We brought in Nelson Borel at the linebacker position and he brought us some added length. And we added another freshman, Herbert Bruno, who came in at linebacker. For a lot of guys it was switching position. We’re still putting together a lot of those pieces on defense.”
On offense, a lot of things went right but one mistake would cost the team the chance to put together drives, the coach added.
“Offensively we couldn’t find the groove but when they watched film it wasn’t because they outmanned us or anything else, we just kind of beat ourselves,” Pierce said. “So that was kind of the frustrating part. But everything is fixable through film. We’re still relying on a bunch of young guys to step up. I’m just hoping we’re more crisp this week than we were last week, because we were a lot more crisp last week than we were the first week against STM.”
Borel led the Tigers with eight tackles and linebacker Destin Robin was second with six tackles.
“They really took care of the box and really made everything work inside,” Pierce said.
Pierce said the secondary played well but rotated a lot of players on the field so nobody had eye-popping statistics.
Robin led the offense with 68 yards and a touchdown on eight carries and Kyle Bonin, a senor fullback, had 36 yards on nine carries. Noah Solomon added 21 yards on seven runs from the slot position.
BBHS junior QB Dakowen “Pop” Celestine saw his first action since the first series in the Tigers’ scrimmage against North Vermilion, returning from injury, Pierce said.
“He’s the guy that really makes it work,” Pierce said. “With all those reps, he’s just going to get better and better and hopefully he’ll be that playmaker that we’re waiting on, which will open up the offense for everyone else.”
The Tigers play host to St. Martin Parish rival St. Martinville on Thursday.
“Just sticking to the fundamentals and the technique” is the key to improving this week, the coach said. “When you have a bunch of new players, sometimes it takes them a little while to settle in.”
Even experienced players like Solomon are settling in to new positions, this time on offense after spending all his time on defense in the past. Celestine is new to the quarterback position, and there also are a lot of freshmen joining the team.
“That’s one of the biggest things is just technique and fundamentals and getting it maximized in practice,” Pierce said.
