September 29, 2023
Chat with Coach Bonis #5: Ouachita Review, Karr Preview
by Brother Neal Golden, S.C. (CJ ’57)
"The Crusaders hit the road for the second straight week, following their visit to St. Thomas More in Lafayette with an even longer trek to Ouachita Parish High School in north central Louisiana.
The defenses prevailed in the first quarter except for one thunderbolt – a 62 yard run by 6’7” Trevon Bradford to the Martin 11. After a penalty set the Lions back to the 21, QB C.J. Spurs swept right end for the touchdown. 7-0 Ouachita.
The teams exchanged punts with the Crusaders getting excellent field position at their 45. The possession became the Jordan West show as the speedy senior halfback carried six times in seven plays for a total of 52 yards including the final eight to tie the game. Neither team scored again until literally the last second of the first half. The Crusaders started a drive from their 28 after a punt. They proceeded by fits and starts thanks to incompletions and penalties. They even punted on fourth down but got to continue the march thanks to a roughing the kicker penalty. As the clock sank under a minute, QB Seth Dazet completed a short pass to RB Sidney Harris to the 24, but a personal foul penalty on Ouachita moved the ball to the 12. With less than 10 seconds remaining, Dazet ran out of the pocket and was tackled at the 10. The clock read 0:00, and Ouachita headed to the locker room. But the officials put one second on the clock because Brother Martin called a timeout in the nick of time. Given new life, Grayson Smith booted a field goal to make the halftime score Brother Martin 10 Ouachita 7.
The Crusaders added to their lead when they received the second half kickoff and drove 78 yards to pay dirt. West again gained most of the yardage – 58 on nine carries including the final seven to make it 17-7 with 7:03 left in the third quarter.
Three plays into Ouachita’s next possession, junior DB Treshoun Ware snagged a Lion pass and returned it 40 yards to make it 24-7.
Ouachita cut the lead back to 10 with a touchdown in the final period, but the visitors responded with another sustained drive. After the Crusaders recovered the onside kick at the Ouachita 46, Harris shouldered the load, running five straight times to put the game out of reach at 31-14 with just 2:38 remaining.
West finished with 17 carries for 116 of the Crusaders 197 yards rushing.
“I’m proud of our guys,” Coach Mark Bonis said. “We’ve been stressing preparation, and we had a much better week of preparation, and it translated well to the field. We had adversity last week, and we battled back and got the job done. I thought our defense did a great job, and all three phases did a good job at different points of the game. We improved as a team.”
The 3-1 Crusaders open District 9-5A play Friday night against the Karr Cougars at Tad Gormley Stadium. Last season, Karr started strong and never let up in a 40-7 thumping of the Crusaders."
