Watching film on this week’s opponent is like looking into a mirror, said Hahnville coach Nick Saltaformaggio of the talented Riverside team awaiting his Tigers Friday night. The Rebels defeated the Tigers 10-7 last season, a loss Saltaformaggio said may have been the most damaging to his team in terms of seeding—while losses to Destrehan and St. Thomas More followed during the regular season, the Rebels loss represented by far the closest game, one contested on Hahnville’s home field and which was in his team’s grasp throughout.
Of course, while Hahnville had its chances, the victorious Rebels were no slouches: they finished as the Division III state runner-up, falling to Notre Dame in the title game.
This season, Hahnville (2-0) travels to play Riverside (1-1) on the Rebels’ home field. Saltaformaggio said earlier this week that he felt his squad was just about ready. He said his team’s ability to raise its level of practice intensity for the remainder of the week would ultimately tell the tale.
“I think we’ve had a good week, but when you have teams like Riverside coming up on Friday, I think you need to even be a little more intense,” Saltaformaggio said. “I told my guys, we practiced (Monday) and that was good enough to beat Woodlawn. But we’re not playing Woodlawn this week. We have to create an environment of tough play at practice that will carry over.”
One thing Saltaformaggio isn’t worried about, though, is whether or not his players are aware of the challenge the Rebels pose.
“I know our kids have a full grasp on who we’re playing this week,” Saltaformaggio said. “I’m not sure that was the case last season.”
“Coach Salt” fully expects a healthy dose of running backs Jeremy Gibson and Louis Cheneau. That, in fact, is one area he sees plenty of similarities to his own squad.
“They’ve got two very good backs. “Our guys (Anthony Williams, Devonte Clark) are our focus as well. We always want to run it,” Saltaformaggio said.
Where the skill weapons differ, Saltaformaggio said, comes at the wide receiver position.
“They’ve got guys in (Jalen) Banks and (Avonti) Cannon who are long, 6’3 guys,” he said. “We’ve got one guy like that in Jamel Byrd, but otherwise they’re bigger.”
Quarterback Jordan Loving triggers the offense. The junior is experienced — he’s started games since his freshman season. Jared Butler also has seen time at quarterback but has been injured. Loving is a pure passer, Butler a dual-threat who can burn a defense with his legs. Butler is likely to be in the lineup Friday, something of interest to Saltaformaggio, who recalls the damage Riverside was able to do with then-star receiver Herb McGee running the Wildcat last season.
“That’s the wildcard for me. They get 11 (Butler) back,” Saltaformaggio said. “That gets their quarterback run-game going, which was what hurt us last year.”
The offensive lines, Saltaformaggio adds, are similarly built around dominant centers in Riverside’s Glenn Bernard and Hahnville’s Drew Jones.
Defensively, both teams run an odd front. Saltaformaggio doesn’t see the Rebels as particularly susceptible to the big play, and he called the Rebels’ front seven “very stout.”
A win would be a beautiful sight for Saltaformaggio; he perhaps only partly in jest called his Tigers’ 30-0 victory at Patterson last week “the prettiest game I’ve had as head coach at Hahnville.”
That victory came on a muddy, freshly rained upon field in which the Tigers almost exclusively leaned on the running game. For a defense and running game enthusiast like Saltaformaggio, the win was truly “a beautiful thing.”
“The field was horrible. It’s nobody’s fault, you had four inches of rain before we played,” Saltaformaggio said. “It was good to see us run the football like that. That’s important as you go further along and the season starts to unfold. We were able to run it with a lot of different people, not just Anthony (Williams) and Devonte (Clark). Cade Miguez ran well. Termon Nash ran well. Those guys came in at end of the game and really did a nice job.”
Williams scored three times and Clark added another score for Hahnville, all on the ground. Clark led the Tigers in rushing, piling up 158 yards and a touchdown on 25 carries.
Riverside defeated Park-view Baptist for the second time in as many years last Friday night, 33-28. The Rebels scored 26 unanswered points in one stretch to key the victory.
Loving passed for 176 yards in the win. His favorite target was Cannon, who hauled in five receptions for 81 yards.
Gibson rushed 27 times for 132 yards and two touchdowns.
Be the first to comment