Destrehan may have traveled more than 300 miles to get to Shreveport for Friday night’s second round battle with Northwood, but there was absolutely no sign of sluggishness from a Wildcats team that is headed back to the quarterfinals – and one that made a statement.
The Wildcats won for the seventh straight week, lighting up the scoreboard in a 63-21 win at Northwood.
No. 10 Destrehan (9-3) advances to face No. 2 Airline in the Division I non-select quarterfinals. Airline defeated Westgate to advance, 42-16.
Malachi Dabney scored six touchdowns for Destrehan to lead the way, posting a monster effort to lift his team to the next round. He rushed 26 times for 270 yards on the night, a dominating performance that stands as his third 200-plus yard outing in just over a month.
But after recovering a fumble on the opening kickoff to set the Wildcats’ up early in strong field position, Jackson Fields and Jabari Mack got the Destrehan offense rolling with a touchdown connection that made it 7-0.
“We got off to a fast start tonight,” Destrehan head coach Marcus Scott. “Sometimes you get on the road and come out a little sluggish, but the kids did a good job handling the trip.”
To say the least – however, that initial touchdown came at a cost as Mack was forced to leave the game with an injury.
Enter Dabney, who got loose on two long touchdown runs in the first half to help Destrehan take full control of the game.
It was the ideal game script for the Wildcats against a Northwood team that could certainly pass the ball behind quarterback Jaxon Benzler, who had accounted for 28 touchdowns against just three interceptions entering Friday’s game. But Northwood’s bread and butter is the run – and the play-action pass off of it – and the Wildcats quickly made their opponent one-dimensional.
“We knew they were about 70 percent run, so stopping that was our priority,” Scott said. “They had to get away from what they really wanted to do – but even so, they have success throwing the ball as well. With the play-action game they had, we had to stay disciplined in our drops,” Scott said.
Scott said Destrehan’s focus on Friday despite the long road trip was a sign of maturity, and he pointed to the team’s early season experience of traveling to Alexandria as something that helped to prepare them.
“I think it’s really good for team bonding,” Scott said. “We went to Alexandria specifically to get ourselves ready for trips like this.”
The Wildcats will call upon both travel experiences next week as Destrehan travels right back to Shreveport, this time to face Airline in the state quarterfinals.
