By LORI LYONS, Journal Sports
Despite some rumors to the contrary, the Bishop’s Bowl trophy is staying right where it is for another year.
While some sports outlets were reporting that St. Mary’s had lost its Friday night game to Holy Savior Menard in the annual Bishop’s Bowl, St. Mary’s coach Kedrin Seastrunk and his Tigers were celebrating a 17-12 victory at Turpin Stadium in Natchitoches, where the trophy has been for the past three years.
“My uncle in Texas saw the wrong score,” said Seastrunk, who earned his first win as a head coach. “But, hey, as long as we’ve got the right one it doesn’t matter.”
“It feels good to finally be on the other side, it’s rewarding, one for my coaching staff and two, to the players for all the hard work they do. And three, to the fans. You always want to deliver on that. One of my goals is to make sure I do everything I possibly can at St. Mary’s to let them know that they made the right hire.”
After a scoreless first quarter, the Tigers got on the board with a 25-yard field goal by Carter Hogg with 7:16 remaining in the first half.
The Tigers then got the big play they needed when sophomore John Paul Thibodaux broke free for a 77-yard touchdown run with 9:35 remaining in the third quarter.
Menard scored with 5:03 left to play in the third quarter but failed to convert a 2-point conversion to make it 10-6.
On the first play of the fourth quarter, Tigers sophomore Brady Childress intercepted a pass and returned it 30 yards for the score to put St. Mary’s ahead 17-6. Menard scored a touchdown late in the fourth quarter to make it 17-12, but later in the quarter the Tigers forced the Eagles to turn the ball over on downs to seal the win for St. Mary’s.
Seastrunk said last week’s loss to Red River gave him and his staff some valuable insights, and adjustments were made.
“There were things we needed to change and needed to do because we have a more realistic view,” Seastrunk said. “We had to go back to the drawing board. So I feel like I had a more fair depiction of the team and what we need to work on. Our No. 1 goal coming into this game was, we have a lot of guys playing both ways and we have a high requirement of them, was to make sure we get in shape. They said we ran more this week than we ran all year.”
The strategy obviously paid off.
St. Mary’s will travel to Many (0-3) next week.
Contact Lori at sportslyons@gmail.com
