East Jefferson eliminates Crowley

CROWLEY – With defending Class 4A state champion East Jefferson coming to town, Crowley High coach Josh Fontenot knew his Gents would have to be at their best to extend their season.
Unfortunately, they weren’t.
A subpar night defensively and a plethora of penalties that pushed the offense out of manageable situations aided in the No. 20 seeded Warriors taking a 38-19 upset victory over the No. 13 Gents at Gardiner Memorial Stadium Friday evening.
The loss ended the Gents’ season while the Warriors advance to next week’s regional contest where they will play host to No. 4 Benton.
“We didn’t play very well tonight,” said Fontenot, whose team finished the season with a record of 8-3. “We just made too many mistakes jumping offsides and not containing. It was a lot of things.
“Anytime the season ends, it’s never good; you never want it to end, but we did a lot of good things this year. It’s just unfortunate that we couldn’t play our best game on the final chapter of it.”
The Gents finished the night with 10 penalties for 80 yards, all of which were false starts and personal foul flags.
Two of those penalties cost the Gents a potential scoring opportunity in the first half when they marched down to the Warriors’ 21-yard line and were set to go for it on fourth-and-3. A false start penalty pushed the Gents back five yards and a personal foul flag on the play added another 15 yards, forcing the Gents to punt late in the second quarter.
The Gents also had a pair of back-to-back false start penalties on their first possession of the third quarter but, fortunately, they were able to recover and cap off a 46-yard scoring drive.
They weren’t as fortunate on their second series of the half when another illegal procedure call turned a third-and-short situation into a passing down. An incompletion followed, resulting in a punt after what looked to be a promising drive.
“We just made too many mistakes at bad times,” said Fontenot. “The offsides penalties killed us and a couple personal fouls; we know better than that.
“I mean we got beat by a better team, but we sure didn’t help ourselves.”
Crowley’s defense, which had been stellar leading up to the playoffs, struggled against East Jefferson’s speed. The Warriors racked up 392 yards on the night, all on the ground, and ate up valuable clock in the second half.
“They are good and they just slip off of you,” said Fontenot of East Jefferson’s running backs, who consistently turned what looked to be tackles for losses into big gains all night. “For one, it’s hard to stop what they do - they do it extremely well and those guys come to play. They won a state championship last year so they know what it’s like to come in here and play hard. And they did.”
Another thing that hurt the Gents was their special teams’ play. East Jefferson’s Leonard Lebranch had a 56-yard punt return that set up a short field and eventually a touchdown in the first quarter and Ronte Ladmirault returned a punt 76 yards in the third quarter to set up another quick score.
“It came down to us just not making plays and making way too many mistakes; and special teams not covering,” said Fontenot. “We’ve covered great all year, that has been one of our strengths. Maybe we could have kicked it out of bounds more but we cover well, that’s what we do.”
Offensively, the Gents struggled as well, especially in the first half.
They were able to run just 17 plays in the first two quarters and went into the half with just 74 total yards of offense.
They fared better in the second half, finishing the night with 216 yards, but they were able to find the end zone just once in the final 24 minutes.
“Going in, we felt like we could run right at them,” said Fontenot. “We knew that was our best opportunity but we didn’t think for a second that we could just mash them because they get off of blocks so well and they are so fast.
“Those runs that we popped all year long and would break for 80 yards, we were getting 20 tonight. We talk about what we want to do on defense, making them earn it; well they made us earn everything and we just couldn’t put it in enough.”
The Gents did make the Warriors earn their first points of the night when East Jefferson marched down to the CHS 8-yard line on their first drive of the game. From there, Ty’Von Griffin recorded a sack before Ed Yokum and Mikal Hebert recorded a tackle for a loss at the 17. After an 11-yard run, the Warriors had to settle for a 23-yard field goal to take a 3-0 lead with 7:39 remaining in the opening quarter.
That lead was short lived, however.
Jacq’Co Price fielded the ensuing kickoff at the Gents’ 11-yard line, hit a seam right up the middle and raced 89-yards for the Gents’ first touchdown of the game. Andrew Simon’s extra point gave the Gents a 7-3 advantage with 7:26 to go in the first quarter.
The Warriors answered right back though.
Quarterback Trevor Diggs and running backs Morris Sarah and Kalib Brown each broke off big runs on an eight-play, 80-yard drive that was capped by Brown’s 4-yard touchdown run.
Sarah gave the Warriors a 17-7 advantage on a 5-yard touchdown run early in the second quarter.
The Gents got within four (17-13) midway through the frame following a fumble recovery by Alex Domingue that gave Crowley a short field at the EJ 16-yard line. From there, quarterback Pate Broussard hit John Marceaux for four yards and Griffin scored two plays later from eight yards out. Simons extra point attempt was wide leaving the Gents trailing 17-13.
East Jefferson coughed the ball up again on the opening series of he second half and Jardell Delco recovered it, giving the Gents another short field at the EJ 46. Broussard connected with Marceaux again, this time for 26 yards before back-to-back penalties pushed the ball back to the 30. Griffin got the call on the next three plays with his third run resulting in a 2-yard touchdown run. Simon’s extra point attempt failed once again but the Gents led for only the second time in the game, 19-17.
After that, it was all East Jefferson.
Brown scored on a 25-yard run  with just under four minutes remaining in the third quarer and Sarah punched it in from nine yards out with just over a minute to go.
Diggs put the punctuation on it late in the fourth quarter with a 4-yard touchdown run.
Sarah and Brown paced the Warriors’ ground attack with 128 and 107 yards rushing, respectively. Diggs finished with 79 yards and Tracy Bright picked up 78.
Griffin led the Gents with 124 yards on 29 carries while also pulling double duty at linebacker. Broussard, who had one carry for nine yards, completed seven passes for 79 yards. He hit Terrell Thomas four times for 48 yards and Marceaux twice for 30 yards. Griffin also had a 1-yard reception.
“All said and done, you’re always disappointed in a loss, but I’m not disappointed in the overall season,” said Fontenot. “I think we overcame so much this year; playing basically 17 guys at 22 positions, fighting through a lot of injuries. I’m very, very proud of what we did this year; eight wins two years in a row.
“It never ends like you want it unless you win the last one in the Dome. We’ll regroup and take a little break and guess what, we are getting ready for next season, that’s what we are doing.”