Despite Destrehan’s 2-4 record, Hahnville head coach Lou Valdin said neither he nor his team is underestimating the Wildcats.
“When I look at Destrehan, I don’t look at their record – I look at the film,” Valdin said. “They are a good team that has a lot of talented kids who play hard.”
Hahnville is coming off of a 7-3 victory over East Ascension that gave the Tigers their first district win of the season in as many tries. Hahnville’s defense played well in the game, and did their best to control a Spartans team that grinds out the clock with their veer offense. The Tiger offense, meanwhile, struggled.
“I wish we could have scored more points, but there were some positives,” Valdin said of the game. “We didn’t turn the ball over and we didn’t have a lot of penalties, and those are good things.”
Still, Hahnville quarterback Brian Ensminger connected on only 8 of his 18 passes for 116 yards. And while running back Ahmad White ran for 100 yards for the fifth time this season, he had just two runs longer than 10 yards in 26 carries.
Valdin said his offense’s struggles mostly came down to field position.
“I don’t know if it was the fact that East Ascension has a really good defense or if we didn’t play well on offense, but I do know that the main thing was field position,” he said. “They did a good job of pinning us back and our average starting field position was inside our own 20-yard line.
“That meant that we were having to drive 80 or 90 yards to score.”
But Valdin said that he was just happy his team got the win and moved to 1-0 in district, which is not something the Wildcats can say.
Destrehan has had its share of problems this season, but the defense has kept the team in every ballgame. That wasn’t the case last week, when the Wildcats dropped their first district game to Dutchtown by a 44-10 score.
Though that was the Wildcats’ worst loss this season, Valdin said that Destrehan does almost everything well.
“They have a good offensive line, talented running backs and receivers and their quarterback is playing well,” he said. “Defensively, they have some really good defensive linemen, so I see a very talented team.”
Destrehan’s quarterback, Dillan Dent, was thrust into the starting lineup three weeks ago and has made some big plays with his feet. Running backs Mark Trudeaux and Lou Donovon Wells have filled in nicely for injured back Kevin Smith. At receiver, the Wildcats also have a pair of gamebreakers in sophomore Rickey Jefferson, who is always capable of taking the ball to the house, and De’Ante’ Armstrong, who gets open due to his quickness.
“We can’t give up the big play on defense,” Valdin said. “Ball security will also be huge because we are going to have to limit their offensive possessions. They have a lot of talented players that can make the big play.”
Destrehan’s defense is difficult to run on because of linemen Marrick Charles and Bryan Singleton. The juniors are both big, strong and fast and present matchup problems for almost every offensive lineman they come up against.
Hahnville will have to run the ball to limit the Wildcats’ possessions, but White will be faced with a tough task on Friday night.
Adding to the intrigue is the fact that St. Charles Parish residents turn out in droves to watch their teams battle it out. Valdin said that puts a lot of pressure on the players.
“To the coaches, this is a big game because it’s the next game on the schedule and we want to win it to remain undefeated in district,” he said. “The community is always excited, so they put a lot more pressure on the kids this week than we do.”
Be the first to comment