Cougars blank Pios in Kiwanis Jamboree

LAFAYETTE – St. Thomas More scored on its first offensive play and passed for 158 yards on the way to a 14-0 win over Notre Dame in the Kiwanis Jamboree Thursday night on the turf at Teurlings. The Pios ran nearly twice as many offensive plays as STM but repeatedly offset positive gains with penalties, a situation Coach Lewis Cook hopes to correct before the season opener.
“We were never three and out against a pretty good football team and that is encouraging. We had success in both the running and passing game, but we couldn’t keep anything going because of mistakes. You leave disappointed because it could have been so much better, but that is on us. We hurt ourselves, missed some tackles. Those are things we know are coachable and can be cleaned up.”
Running back Lance Bertrand gave the Pios a spark on the first series with a 24 yard tackle breaking run. Bertrand finished with 35 rushing yards on five carries including a three yard power dive on fourth and one before the offense stalled at the Cougars 19.
On the first STM snap, quarterback William Bellamy completed a quick slant to slot receiver Tiger Bech. The senior receiver turned it up the middle of the field between the Pios coverage and took it 81 yards for a 7-0 Cougars lead.
“They had a chance to get on top quick and didn’t worry about running the football a whole bunch,” added Cook. “When they did run it, they didn’t get much against our defense, but that didn’t matter because they were able to make the plays they needed in the passing game.”
STM chose not to test the Pios defensive front and ran it just 5 times for 22 yards in the game. The damage came from the Cougars completing 10 of 12 passes for those 158 yards.
After a 47 yard Dustin Reiners punt pinned the Cougars at their 10 yard line, STM drove 90 yards for another score. Bellamy completed seven straight passes, got help from a pass interference call, and found Bech for a 7 yard scoring pass with seconds left in the first half.
For Notre Dame, there was plenty of good in the runs of Lance Bertrand and Damon Comeaux and the passing of Brad Stoma, but penalties and mistakes seemed to set back every positive gain.
Stoma completed a deep pass down the sideline to Boedy Borill that was called back for holding and scrambled for another long completion to Borill at the STM ten that was also cancelled by a penalty.
“It was disappointing to come out and get a couple of holding penalties, a block in the back, our protection was sloppy at times and other times we made mistakes that cost us,” noted Cook. “I thought offensively there were a lot of bright spots except we kept stopping ourselves with penalties. Hopefully, we got it out now and will learn from it.”
Stoma had a clutch ten yard completion to Gabe Gardiner and Joe Faulk showed his versatility with 39 receiving yards on four catches and a seven yard run from the wildcat formation. Damon Comeaux had runs of 15 and 12 yards and Dustin Reiners had the kicking game rolling with punts of 47 and 54 yards.
For the most part, Cook got what he wanted from the jamboree as the Pios prepare for the season opener.
“I had about 18 things scripted down and we got to just about all of them. We ran several screens, we ran the draw, a counter and got some looks in the passing game. We got a lot of guys in to play, guys we had moved around to fill some spots and we saw some good things. There was a lot we can take from the jamboree and use to help us get better.”