The Natchitoches Central Chiefs football team journeys to Cajun country tonight, opening its season and playing its first regular-season game under new coach Brad Laird at Breaux Bridge.

Kickoff is 7 p.m. with radio coverage locally on 100.7 FM.

Laird, the former Northwestern State head coach and also a veteran high school coach at Ruston, is back in the high school ranks for the first time since 2016. He’s the third NCHS coach in four years – the same situation as in Breaux Bridge, where the Tigers have also gone through unusual transition.

However, while NCHS is a program trying to find sound footing, Breaux Bridge is coming off a 7-5 playoff season and has 11 starters back. The Chiefs have only four starters from last season, two on each side of the ball.

In last Friday night’s Bayou Jamb in Monroe at ULM, Natchitoches Central played heavily favored Ouachita Parish to a standoff in a defensive struggle. The Lions prevailed 6-0, scoring on the last play of the game on a 1-yard run. It was a bitter end for NCHS because the Chiefs appeared to stop OPHS on the previous play when the visitors recovered a fumble, but officials ruled an inadvertent whistle had blown and required the play to be run again.

After tonight’s contest, NCHS comes home to start District 1-5A competition next Friday against Evangel.

Also tonight, St. Mary’s plays host to Bunkie at Turpin Stadium and Lakeview goes to Booker T. Washington in Shreveport.