All three parish high school football teams hit the road tonight, with St. Mary’s carrying its unbeaten record to face Grant while Natchitoches Central rolls down I-49 to play Tioga and Lakeview heads to the Arkansas border to meet North Webster.
All games kick off at 7. The NCHS game will air on 100.7 FM KZBL and the St. Mary’s contest will be carried by 446Sports.com.
NATCHITOCHES CENTRAL: The Chiefs are 0-3 against a taxing non-district schedule that wraps up with another tough test tonight at Tioga.
Losses to Sam Houston and North DeSoto at home, and at Sterlington, have seen NCHS give up 42 points or more each week, while scoring only 40. North DeSoto and Sterlington are highly ranked in the state Top 10 polls conducted by the LSWA.
The Chiefs have struggled offensively after halftime with turnovers and penalties thwarting scoring chances.
Tioga (2-1) fell 46-36 to Leesville last week after beating Red River and Pineville soundly in the first two weeks of the season. The Class 4A Indians made the second round in last year’s state playoffs.
ST. MARY’S: The Tigers (3-0) begin a very challenging stretch of their schedule under first-year coach Jacob Carruth with a visit to Dry Prong to face the Class 3A Cougars (0-3).
It will be a showcase for productive running backs. St. Mary’s has the Thibodaux brothers, John Paul and Jacob, while Grant features one of the state’s most dangerous runners, senior Aymaud Sykes, who scored 10 touchdowns last year against Montgomery and runs a 4.29 40-yard dash.
St. Mary’s dominated Class 2A Menard last Friday night at Turpin Stadium in a 50-14 Bishop’s Bowl victory, their fifth win in the last six meetings with the Eagles.
The Grant game starts a stretch of contests that could vault the Tigers into the Class A top 10 if they can be successful in the next four games – at Grant, at Winnfield, then home for District 3-1A games against league favorites Logansport and Jonesboro-Hodge.
After that, St. Mary’s and Lakeview square off.
LAKEVIEW: The Gators carry a two-game winning streak up to Springhill for a non-district test with Class 2A North Webster.
Lakeview is 2-1 after wins at Plain Dealing and for homecoming last week over Magnolia School of Excellence, scoring a combined 81 points while the Gators’ defense did not allow a score. Magnolia did have two return touchdowns, on kickoff and punt runbacks, in the 46-14 Lakeview victory.
Jamarcus Rushing threw a trio of touchdown passes and Brycen Smith scored three times for the Gators, who pulled away with 32 second-half points.
The game matches former NSU classmates, head coaches Lawrence Seawood Jr. of Lakeview and North Webster’s Christopher Wilson. The Knights haven’t won yet this year.