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Written by Dan McDonald | Saturday, 28 November 2009 00:20 Prep Sports
NEW IBERIA – Redemptorist, a high school football program steeped in tradition, appeared to be well on its way to continuing that tradition and claiming a berth in the Class 3A semifinals.
The Wolves held a 47-28 lead over Catholic-New Iberia with less than a minute left in the third period, and running back Jeremy Hill was putting on a personal clinic against the host Panthers’ defense.
His three third-period touchdowns – one on a 38-yard catch and the others on runs of 22 and 29 yards – gave him six trips to the end zone in less than three quarters, and a team like Redemptorist with three state titles since 2002 just doesn’t give up a three-score lead late in a game.
But somebody forgot to tell the Panthers, a team that hasn’t advanced to the semifinals in over four decades. And because of that, the final 12-plus minutes will give the Wolves nightmares the entire off-season … an off-season that shockingly began for them here Friday night.
Catholic-New Iberia scored on each of its final three possessions, sandwiched around an onside-kick recovery and a rare defensive stop, and Taylor Bullock’s seven-yard pass to Devin Boutte with 38 seconds left gave the 20th-seeded Panthers a stunning 50-47 victory in their Class 3A quarterfinal shootout.
“The coaches just kept telling us to keep believing,” Bullock said after CHNI (9-4) avoided another last-minute loss that had plagued the Panthers all season. “All we had to do was get a couple of stops.”
Defensive stops were hard to come by for either team. Out of 22 possessions by both teams combined in the game, only eight didn’t end up in touchdowns.
“It hurts so much and it’s so much harder because it’s the last game,” said Redemptorist coach Guy Mistretta. “We thought we could move the ball and control it, and we were pretty successful.”
But Mistretta had sounded his own team’s death knell earlier in the week, when he said that special teams would likely be the determining factor in who advanced to face top-seeded Notre Dame in next week’s semifinal round.
“With two offenses like that, we felt that special teams would be the difference,” he said, “and it was. They had the kickoff return and the on-side kick, and we missed on some conversions and had to wind up going for two. It’s something we work on every day.”
The fifth-seeded Wolves (10-2) had two bad snaps on extra-points and wound up going for two on each of their last four touchdowns, cashing in only once. Meanwhile, CHNI got a 77-yard kickoff return for a touchdown from Boutte 2:35 before halftime to take a 28-27 lead into intermission, and on the first play of the fourth quarter Ian Bordes recovered an on-side kick at midfield that set the Panthers up for a score that made it a one-touchdown game.
“Our defense stepped up big,” said Bullock, who ran for 137 yards and two scores and threw for 128 yards and the game-winning tally. Those numbers were actually below Bullock’s recent output average, but he was getting plenty of help on Friday.
“It’s absolutely huge for us to get to the semifinals,” he said. “It’s the first time I think since back in the ‘60s, so it’s big for everybody here.”
Redemptorist’s special-teams gaffes didn’t appear to be game-wrecking during the third period, when Hill and the Wolves dominated play. His 38-yard reception from Deuce Coon on the second play after halftime gave RHS a 35-28 lead, and after a fumble recovery the Wolves drove 43 yards and Hill went the final 22 with 4:04 left in the third quarter.
Boutte appeared to have another kickoff-return touchdown moments later but his 88-yard scamper came back on a holding penalty, and the Panthers came up short on a fourth-down at midfield with two minutes left in the third quarter. It took Redemptorist only three plays to score, with Hill going the last 24 yards on a sweep to the right side for the 47-28 lead.
“We’ve had so many close games like this that we knew we weren’t out of it,” said Panther coach Craig Brodie. “Maybe those games we had earlier in the year gave us some experience in a game like this.”
CHNI began its comeback at the third-period horn when Thomas Theriot caught a lateral pass and threw 49 yards to a wide-open Cory Brodie. One play later, Bordes recovered the on-side kick, and the Panthers converted two fourth-down plays in a 41-yard drive that Bullock capped with a two-yard run with 6:35 left that made it 47-42.
“We had to on-side kick because we couldn’t stop them,” said Brodie of the RHS attack that generated 488 offensive yards.
But the Panthers did make a stop four minutes later, with the Wolves druving to the CHNI 24 before a sack and an incompletion ended the drive at the Panthers’ 33 with 1:58 left. Bullock hit Boutte for 14 yards to near midfield on the first play, and after two straight defensive holding penalties on the Wolves his 21-yard screen to Brody Rogers took the ball to the RHS 8.
On second down with the clock running, Bullock threw a fade route that Boutte snared in the end zone.
The Wolves managed to reach the Catholic 32-yard-line on the final play but the clock had expired.
Hill finished the night with 273 yards on 32 carries, and had first-half touchdowns on runs of 11, six and four yards. That helped the Wolves rally from an early 14-0 CHNI lead, with RHS going from 14-0 down to a 27-21 lead in a stretch of less than 10 minutes.
Bullock and Rogers each scored in the game’s first nine minutes sandwiched around an interception of Coon before the Wolves’ rapid-fire comeback.
“We didn’t stop them much,” Brodie said, “but maybe it was just our turn to win one like this.”
Catholic-New Iberia 50, Redemptorist 47
RHS CHNI
First Downs 23 22
Rushes-Yards 42-302 41-225
Passing Yards 186 177
Total Offense 488 402
Passes 6-9-1 11-17-1
Punts-Avg. 1-34.0 1-27.0
Fumbles-Lost 2-1 2-1
Penalties-Yards 10-101 4-42
RHS 6 21 20 0 -- 47
CHNI 14 14 7 15 -- 50
First Quarter
CHNI – Taylor Bullock 23 run (Grant Quinlan kick)
CHNI – Brady Rogers 1 run (Quinlan kick)
RHS – Jeremy Hill 11 run (run failed)
Second Quarter
RHS – Hill 6 run (Hill run)
RHS – Denzeil Warner 58 pass from Deuce Coon (Jeremy Armand kick)
CHNI – Bullock 8 run (Quinlan kick)
RHS – Hill 4 run (run failed)
CHNI – Devin Boutte 77 kickoff return (Quinlan kick)
Third Quarter
RHS – Hill 38 pass from Deuce Coon (Coon run)
RHS – Hill 22 run (pass failed)
RHS – Hill 29 run (run failed)
CHNI – Cory Brodie 49 pass from Thomas Theriot (Quinlan kick)
Fourth Quarter
CHNI – Bullock 2 run (Quinlan kick)
CHNI – Boutte 7 pass from Bullock (Bullock run)
Individual Statistics
RUSHING – RHS, Jeremy Hill 32-273 5 TD, Deuce Coon 8-26, Corey Trim 2-3. CHNI, Taylor Bullock 25-137 3 TD, Thomas Theriot 6-41, Brody Rogers 6-39 1 TD, Devin Boutte 4-8.
PASSING – RHS, Coon 6-8-1, 186 yds., 2 TD, team 0-1-0. CHNI, Bullock 10-16-1, 128 yds., 1 TD, Theriot 1-1-0, 49 yds., 1 TD.
RECEIVING – RHS, Denzeil Warner 1-58 1 TD, Nico Talbert 2-35, Hill 1-38 1 TD, Jarren Pickering 1-16, Kyle Cedotal 1-39. CHNI, Boutte 5-94 1 TD, Cory Brodie 1-49 1 TD, Rogers 2-25, Theriot 3-9.
Records – Redemptorist 10-2, Catholic-New Iberia 9-4. Next – CHNI at Notre Dame in Class 3A semifinals Friday.
