Gents cruise past Bulldogs in Acadia Parish Jamboree

CHURCH POINT – The Iota Bulldogs may have landed the first blow, but it was the Crowley Gents who delivered the haymaker in the two teams’ 2014 Acadia Parish Jamboree game Thursday.
After holding the Gents in the Red Zone on the game’s opening possession and then stunning their opponents with a 71-yard touchdown run by Adam Ardoin just three minutes into the game, the Bulldogs’ hopes of a possible upset seemed plausible.
Unfortunately, the only thing that did, however, was awaken a sleeping giant.
The Gents, behind the running of Ty’Von Griffin and a swarming defense, responded with six unanswered touchdowns while holding the Bulldogs out of the end zone the rest of the way to claim a decisive 40-6 victory in the first of two jamboree games at Church Point High School’s Bears’ Stadium.
“They came out and punched us in the mouth early and I tell you what, I’m glad they did,” said CHS coach Josh Fontenot afterward. “I wanted that to happen here and not next week. They hit us and they tackled us and they got off of blocks and we’ve got to be better than that. But we responded after that.”
And that was on both sides of the ball.
Offensively, the Gents racked up 197 yards in the final 12 minutes of the first half and scored on a pair of short runs by Ty’Von Griffin as well as an 80-yard touchdown pass to Griffin to bounce back from their early deficit.
“That was the team that we expect to have out there,” said Fontenot of his offense. “They (Bulldogs) popped us and then we just cranked it us. And to have the ability to do that, and the mindset and athletic ability to do that, is a great thing. I was very happy with our response.”
Overall, the Gents posted 344 total yards of offense on the evening with 243 of those yards through the air.
On the defensive side, the Gents held the Bulldogs to negative 13 yards the rest of the first half following Ardoin’s big run and they also forced two turnovers, one resulting in a 23-yard touchdown return by C.J. Douresseaux.
“I thought the defense was great tonight,” said Fontenot. “We are trying to emphasize turnovers with them and it happened tonight. We had four guys on the ball and another guy came in there and stripped it.
“We are moving forward. I was extremely pleased with the defense. Just the intensity they had was great.”
The Gents got on the board with 7:50 remaining in the first half when Griffin capped an 11-play, 51-yard drive with a 1-yard touchdown run.
Shortly after that, Douresseaux stripped Ardoin on a run play and punched in a score for the Gents’ defense from 23-yards out to give Crowley a 13-6 advantage with 5:54 remaining in the half.
The Gents’ defense once again stepped up and forced Iota into a 3-and-out situation on the Bulldogs’ next series.
Starting at their own 46, the Gents marched down to the Bulldogs’ 4-yard line.
Iota held for three straight plays, stopping Griffin at the 1-yard line twice before he finally got in the end zone on fourth down to push the lead to 19-6.
The Bulldogs were force to punt on their next offensive series as well and the Gents got the ball back on their own 20-yard line with just 16 seconds remaining in the half.
Instead of taking a knee and running the clock out, Fontenot elected to air it out. With five seconds remaining, after missing on two long balls to Terrell Thomas and Jacq’co Price, quarterback Pate Broussard connected with Griffin over the middle, resulting in an 80-yard touchdown.
“We like to work two-minute (drill) any chance we get and in that situation, that’s the only way to go,” said Fontenot. “We had like 17 seconds left and you’re not going to score on a drive. And you don’t just want to do a Hail Mary; you want to throw some things that you can complete and we were able to hit one.”
The bleeding, however, didn’t stop there for Iota.
The Gents got the ball to start the second half and on the second play from scrimmage, Broussard hit Thomas on a screen pass, which the speedy Thomas grabbed and raced 63 yards down the sideline for another touchdown to push the lead to 33-6.
After that, Fontenot started making substitutions and freshman running back Keith Wilson made the best of his opportunity. After breaking an option for 35 yards, the 5-foot-6, 150-pound back pulled down a short pass and weaved through the line and spun off defenders en route to a 25-yard touchdown.
“Keith is someone we’re really excited about,” said Fontenot of Williams, who finished with three carries for 52 yards and had one reception for 25. “He has a burst on him and he’s a strong little booger. And he’s not intimidated. It was his first time with us under the lights and he was excited to get out there.”
Overall, the Gents posted 344 total yards of offense on the evening, 243 of those yards through the air.
Broussard completed seven of his 14 pass attempts, hitting Thomas and Mikal Hebert twice each for 78 and 59 yards, respectively. Griffin had one catch for 80 yards while Wilson had one for 25 and Marceaux had one for one yard.
Griffin also had 12 carries out of the backfield for 39 yards.
Iota finished with 153 total yards of offense, the bulk of which came from Ardoin. He logged 12 touches for 113 yards while Triston Fontenot and Alex Frey each had one carry for 10 yards each.
Timothy Lunson completed two passes, one to Bliss Deshazo for nine yards and one to Ardoin for one yard. Tristan Miller completed one pass for eight yards to Emmett Bobbett.
In all, Fontenot was pleased with his team’s performance and said it is a step in the right direction heading into Friday’s season opener on the road against Wossman. That game will be played at Richwood High School due to renovations at Wossman’s field.
“We saw a lot of good things tonight and we saw some bad things,” said Fontenot. “But everything bad that happened tonight; well, it was a good thing. Every one of them (mistakes) was a lesson that we needed to learn. You’re going to learn those lessons but it’s better to learn them in the jamboree rather then when we play Wossman
“But we’re feeling good about where we are. I feel confident in this team and I love it because of how hard they have prepared for this year and I’m excited about the opener.”