Brother Martin ended the football regular season last Friday night at Tulane’s Yulman Stadium against John Curtis. The Patriots were coming off their first district loss in four seasons – to Rummel, 21-20. The Crusaders started strong, dominating the first 15 minutes of playing time. But all they had to show for it was two missed field goals. Then Curtis QB Collin Guggenheimer found WR Justin Brooks wide open for a 41 yard scoring strike. Later in the second period, Guggenheimer connected with Joel Taylor for 51 yards to make the score 14-0 at halftime.

“We wanted to sit on the football,” says Coach Mark Bonis. “They had a total of just six or eight offensive plays in the first quarter. Our running backs, Chris Smith and Jaylen Spears, ran for close to 200 yards. But when you play Curtis and get the ball in the red zone, you need to score touchdowns. We didn’t. We also came away empty without field goals.”

“Defensively, we made them go to things they haven’t done all year. They scored twice on the same play. With the amount of coaches they have, they make adjustments quickly. They’ve been doing that so long that there’s not a whole lot they haven’t seen.”

“The score that really hurt was the touchdown right before the half. We were ‘personelling’ them. They saw we were trying to put different corners on different receivers. They run guys in and off, living in a gray area a little bit. You’re not supposed to break the huddle with 12 players. They run a guy on and at the last second run a guy off before breaking the huddle. Our defensive back on our side of the field was supposed to cover the guy on the other side. We were also trying to get a defensive lineman off and another guy on. So we got caught in a personnel switch.”

“When colleges went to the 40-second clock (between plays), they put in the rule that when the offense subs, the defense is allowed to sub. I hope the High School Federation looks at that. Going down two scores at halftime after we thought we really did a good job the first half – it’s deflating.”

The Patriots added three rushing touchdowns in the second half while the Crusaders averted a shutout on Jack Landry’s 30-yard field goal in the third quarter. The final score was 36-3.

“Being down two scores got us away from what we wanted to do. Now we had to start throwing the football. We had a few quicker possessions, which put our defense back on the field and got them fatigued. They are a machine, great at what they do. You have to play close to a perfect game to beat them.”

The Crusaders finished as the #4 seed in the Division I playoffs, which gives them a bye this week. While waiting for the winner of the Scotlandville-McKinley game Friday night, the team has spent the past week concentrating on themselves. “We’ve gone back to fundamentals in all three phases of football,” says Bonis. “We’ve done self-scouting, looking through busts throughout the season and correcting those things. We’ve had a chance to heal our guys that have been banged up and get as close to 100% healthy as can be.”