MCHS to open district against Ellender

The Morgan City High School football team will begin District 7-4A play Friday when it travels to face Ellender High School.
The Tigers enter the game following a 39-14 loss to Class 4A’s then-No. 9 ranked team, Rayne, while the Patriots fell a week ago in its District 7-4A opener to Assumption High School, 42-34.
In the Patriots loss, Ellender rallied in the second half and tied the game in the second half before Assumption’s Jimmie Wise broke a 34-all tie with a 17-yard run and subsequent two-point conversion run for the final score.
For Ellender, quarterback Curtis Anderson carried the ball 18 times for 129 yards and three touchdowns and tossed a 58-yard touchdown strike to Justen Harris.
Harris also returned a kickoff 81 yards for a touchdown.
“On film Ellender looks like a typical Ellender team,” Morgan City coach Scott Tregle said. “They have good athletes. They’re real big up front.”
Tregle said the Patriots will try to throw the ball downfield often.
Anderson has completed 33 of 85 passes for 524 yards with three touchdowns and three interceptions this season, while he has rushed 80 times for 172 yards and four scores.
Tregle said Ellender’s spread offense is led by Anderson.
“He loves to run the ball,” Tregle said. “He would rather run it than throw it.”
Harris has rushed for 222 yards on 37 carries with one touchdown, while he has hauled in 23 passes for 290 yards and two scores.
Reginald Williams leads the Ellender ground attack this season with 55 carries for 413 yards and three scores.
Jordon Gauthreaux also has caught eight passes for 206 yards and a score.
On defense, Tregle said Ellender is big on the line but he noted they tire quickly. He said Assumption scored on them “a good bit,” and the Tigers would try to keep running the ball and control the clock if they can.
Ellender’s defense features Louisiana Tech commitment Brandon Brinson.
In Morgan City’s loss a week ago, Rayne bolted out to a 32-0 lead at the half and dominated the first two quarters.
The Wolves totaled 260 yards of offense in the first half, 225 of those rushing.
They limited Morgan City to minus 32 yards of offense in the initial half.
While Rayne’s junior varsity played for much of the second half, Morgan City did a better job in the second half on defense.
“We made an adjustment on defense and put more guys in the box and it helped out. … We actually won the second half 14-7 and … it wasn’t a running clock,” Tregle said. “We played hard for the 48 minutes, and I was real happy the kids came out and fought back the second half.”
The Tigers got second-half touchdowns via a 21-yard run by Jacolbi Francois and a 78-yard kickoff return by Kevon Marsh.
Francois led Morgan City on offense with five carries for 44 yards, while quarterback Hector Tolento completed 3 of 13 passes for 30 yards and one interception.
Morgan City totaled just 53 yards of offense, including 19 yards rushing on 25 carries with one touchdown.
Tregle said his team was flat in the first half Friday and said his coaching staff just took too much out of his squad in practice leading up to the Rayne game. He noted that a lot of his players are both junior varsity and varsity players.
“We just came out and you could tell (in) pregame everybody was just drained,” Tregle said. “Plus we had a hard, fought war against Franklin the week before, so that compacted with the tough week of practice and the heat and a good team we’re playing, it all affected us in a negative way.”
This week, the coaching staff backed off some, Tregle said.
The Tigers also enter this week’s contest banged up. The Tigers lost Scott Comeaux for the season last week due to injury, Tregle said, and Morgan City’s coach said Tierrell Jones still is out with an injury.
The Tigers will now be playing two freshmen in their defensive backfield this week, Alex Brocato and Tajh Jones, while Francois will play free safety.
“It’s just going to come down to who wins the war on Friday, who sticks it out, who makes the least amount of mistakes,” Tregle said. “I think it’s a game we can definitely win. We’re going to have a lot of… inexperienced kids on the field, but hopefully they (Ellender) come out and make some mistakes, and we limit our’s and that’s going to be the key to the game.”
This season, Marsh leads the Tigers with 76 carries for 456 yards and four touchdowns, while Francois has rushed 53 times for 253 yards and two touchdowns.
Jaylen Jones has 23 carries for 204 yards and two touchdowns. Jones also leads Morgan City’s receivers with 14 catches for 279 yards and four touchdowns.
Through the air, Tolento has completed 11 of 36 pass attempts for 222 yards with four touchdowns and two interceptions.
Abram Hartley has completed 17 of 26 attempts for 149 yards with two scores and one interception.
Additional reporting by www.bayoupreps.com.