Destrehan and East St. John have played some barnburners over the years. Friday night saw another.
Kyle Edwards’ 29-yard rushing touchdown in the fourth quarter supplied Destrehan a lead and a blocked extra point by Champ Craven preserved it as DHS survived a hot back-and-forth District 7-5A contest in Reserve, 35-34.
“I think when we needed to run the football, we were able to run the football and that was key, especially in that third quarter,” Destrehan coach Stephen Robicheaux said. “Kyle Edwards scored that big touchdown … (ESJ) made plays on their side. They’ve got great athletes. We kind of hung in there … and made some plays of our own.”
After Edwards broke loose down the sideline for a go-ahead touchdown to put Destrehan up 35-28, East St. John (2-4, 1-2) marched down the field in seven plays late in the fourth quarter, with Prentice Cook scoring on a 22-yard run to cut the DHS advantage to 35-34 with 3:47 left.
East St. John coach Brandon Brown at first elected to send his offense back out to attempt to score a two-point conversion to give his team the lead, but a false start penalty prompted the coach to call for an extra point kick attempt instead.
But several DHS Wildcats broke through the line and it was Craven who ultimately blocked the ball and preserved a one-point lead for his team.
“I knew we needed a big play,” Craven said. “I didn’t want our offense have to go down the field and score again so I wanted to help them out by making a big play … I like to make big plays. I like to be in that position and that just fired me up.”
Destrehan (5-1, 3-0) ran three times on its next possession to make ESJ use its timeouts, but ultimately had to punt to give ESJ the ball back with 2:06 remaining. Sean Shelby connected with Markel August twice to quickly move the ball from the ESJ 21 to the DHS 45.
But the drive began to stall at midfield, leading to a fourth down attempt with 14 yards to go from the 50. Shelby lofted one downfield, and a host of Wildcats had coverage, with Craven, Tyler Morton and Denzel Riley combining to bat the pass down and seal the win.
The fireworks in this one didn’t begin until the second quarter, after the teams finished the first period in a scoreless tie. After a touchdown reception by Shelby from Duke Crosby, Destrehan’s Dontrell Smith returned the ensuing kickoff 99 yards to tie the game.
ESJ jumped back up on a 65 yard run by Calvin Gardner. Destrehan answered on a 32-yard scoring strike from J.R. Blood to Quincy Brown.
But then, just before half, Shelby found Jarius Monroe on an end of the quarter Hail Mary pass, 40-yard touchdown and fantastic catch to push the lead to 20-14 after the extra point was missed.
Destrehan wasn’t rattled and scored the next two touchdowns, one on a 7-yard run by Carl Lewis and the other on a 9-yard connection between Blood and Carson Rieder. But East St. John quickly tied the game early in the fourth quarter on Dontae Fleming’s 70-yard touchdown reception from Shelby.
“They were better than we expected,” Craven said. “They’re really quick. They know how to move the ball and they know how to get open.”
Robicheaux was quick to praise the job Brown has already done with the East St. John program in his first season as head coach.
“He did a phenomenal job. We saw it on film … that’s a team that should have been 4-1 coming in … my hat’s off to them, they played a tremendous game,” Robicheaux said. “That’s a different East St. John team, I promise you.”
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