St. Louis shuts out Iota

IOTA – In a season of injuries and unpredictability, Thursday night’s season finale predictably went St. Louis Catholic’s way with a 30-0 victory for the Saints.
That doesn’t mean the Iota Bulldogs didn’t have positives to harp on Thursday, more and more as weeks have gone by this year.
“That’s probably the best we’ve played (defensively) all season,” said Iota coach Neal Legé. “St. Louis’ offense is a little vanilla, sure, but that’s what they do, and their running back still got his yards.”
That running back was Terrell Rodriguez, who carried the ball 21 times for 144 yards and two touchdowns, and with those numbers, went over 1,000 yards on the season according to St. Louis’ coach Charlie Cryer.
“Our running back hit 1,000 yards tonight, so that was good. We were happy for that.”
The turnaround at St. Louis Catholic has been something to behold. After sputtering through its non-district schedule with a 1-4 record (only defeating Abbeville in Week 2 action), the team has steadily improved and put up a 4-1 in district and pulled even on the season with a 5-5 record overall.
“We went from 1-4 last year to 4-1, and we beat some good teams to get there,” said Cryer. “It’s kinda unbelievable. The kids have bought in and are doing just a great job. I have a tremendous coaching staff who has done a good job.
“We’re playing good at the right time, and that’s always a good thing.”
For Iota, the season comes to a familiar end as it fell to 0-10, 0-5, for a second year.
“It’s a shame it had to end this way for the second straight year,” said Legé. “Like I told the underclassmen, ‘Your season starts next week. You gotta get in the weight room and start getting ready for next year. It’ll be here before you know it.’”
The first game’s score came with 7:53 remaining in the first frame. The three play, 9 yard drive was set up by a blocked punt deep in Iota territory. On the third play, Saints quarterback Cameron Fontenot locked up with wide receiver Dekeinen Francois from 7 yards out. After forcing a three-and-out, the Saints would march the ball down the field and score again seconds before the end of the quarter. This time it would be Terrell Rodriguez running in from 4 yards out with 8.6 remaining.
The second quarter and netted only three points with a 47 yards field goal from Thomas Odowd.
Though only scoring 17 points in the first half, the statistics show St. Louis control over the game. The Saints averaged 4.2 yards per play in the two frames with 137 total yards of offense on 33 plays. Iota, however, only had a 27 total yards on 18 plays, or 1.5 yards per play. St. Louis also picked up seven first downs in the half to Iota’s one.
The Bulldogs, with everything they tried, just could not find rhythm offensively. Every good play was complicated by multiple bad ones to follow that usually led to a punt, or worse.
“They blitzed so [dang] much (it was hard to get anything going),” said Legé.
Also, as it was the season finale, Legé made sure to let his seniors get one last go at it, and, for several, that meant playing hurt. But, even with the sputtering offensive output and the up and down play, several Bulldogs played their hearts out, which left Legé happy.
“[The kids] played well,” he said. “Kade (Covalt) played well tonight. Kaleb (Guillory), my freshman tailback, ran well when he had a chance to run.”
Though not getting over the century mark Thursday, Guillory did have 15 carries for 72 yards, and broke off a couple of big runs late in the game.
The Saints rattled off two more scores in the second half, both on lengthy drives. The first came from Rodriguez’s feet on a 7 yard run with 2:42 remaining in the third quarter. The second came from 4 yards out on a Joe Manuel rush with 11:17 left in the fourth quarter.
“We played well,” said Cryer. “We played really better on offense in the second half.
“We played really good defense the whole game, but we came out in the second half offensively and took control of the line of scrimmage, and that was good for us.”
The Bulldogs play shored up in the second half as well, allowing only 13 points in the two frames and actually played about even in the second half with St. Louis, though Legé acknowledges that some substitutions for the Saints did even things up a bit for Iota as well.
“They were playing their JV by that time, but we’re basically playing with a JV team,” Legé said of his team that is starting more freshmen than he can ever recall seeing.
“To have success against their JV kinda tells you where we’re at.”
In the second half, Iota added 80 yards to their total offensive output to St. Louis’ 98. They ran 22 plays to the Saints’ 19, and picked up six first downs to St. Louis’ five.
While the Bulldogs were led by Guillory offensively, Covalt added a rush for 20 yards and five catches for 46 yards. Lunson added nine yards on 10 carries and went 7-12 for 35 yards and an interception. In limited action, Austen Montgomery through an 11 yard pass and went 1-1. On a trick play, Covalt also attempted a pass, but missed his target.
Defensively, Covalt and Montgomery seemed to be just about everywhere in the backfield, particularly in the second half, applying pressure to the Saints’ receivers and helping keep St. Louis Catholic quarterback Cameron Fontenot to only 51 yards in the air, going 7-16.
St. Louis now sits and waits to find out if it will gain a share of the district crown and what awaits them in the postseason, and as Legé said, for Iota, the new season begins next week.