Opposition gunning for 7-0 Wildcats

After cruising to big wins in their first five games of the season, the Destrehan Wildcats have found themselves fighting for their lives in their last two contests, both of which the team still managed to win.

But that doesn't surprise Wildcat head man Stephen Robicheaux, who knows that his team's opponents are going to give his top ranked squad everything they've got.

"There is no doubt that the team knows that we are going to get everybody's good game," he said. "As far as the power rankings are concerned, we are No. 1 in the state and people are going to be gunning for us."

Two weeks ago, Hahnville didn't need any extra motivation when it came to taking their rivals down to the wire. If the Wildcats were winless, the Tigers would have still come out firing and the game would have still likely gone into double-overtime.

However, for the rest of the teams on Destrehan's schedule, knocking off the Wildcats could make their season.
Destrehan got their first taste of how dangerous it can be at the top when the team needed a blocked field-goal to hold on to a 21-19 victory over now 2-5 St. Amant.

In that contest, Destrehan jumped out to a 14-0 first-quarter lead, but allowed the Gators back into the contest in the third quarter. In that period alone, Destrehan entered the red zone three separate times, but came away scoreless on each occasion.

"Offensively, we moved the ball and we did some good things defensively, but we made a lot of mistakes and that's the thing that hurt us," Robicheaux said. "We made some bad penalties on defense, had some personal fouls, and that's not typical of what we do."

While Destrehan certainly avoided a letdown after last week's emotional victory by securing their seventh win of the season, Robicheaux knows that his team's win over Hahnville took a lot out of them.

"I think it did have an affect," Robicheaux said. "Your going down there and playing a team that's 2-4 and at times we didn't look good and at other times we looked good. I kind of blame myself because I don't think we were ready to play and it showed."

Destrehan will need to rebound quickly if they hope to stay undefeated on Friday. They will face a tough East St. John team that is fresh off of a big victory over Dutchtown.

Though East St. John is 4-3, their losses have come to John Curtis, Acadiana, and Bastrop, who have a 19-1 record combined.

"They have played a pretty tough pre-district schedule," Robicheaux said. "They do a good job of ball control and defensively they are real big up front and athletic in the secondary. It ought to be interesting Friday night."

While the East St. John game will definitely be an interesting one, so will the rest of the contests  on Destrehan's schedule.

In order for the team to achieve their goal of a state title, they will need to get better every week.

"Obviously, your goal is to win every game you play and so far we have done that," Robicheaux said. "My expectation of this team is higher than we are playing right now. Can we get better? Yeah. Will we get better? Yeah.

We have a lot of talent on this team and until we play up that that talent, we have to continue to get better. I think that's what everybody's shooting for."