Brawl ends MCHS spring scrimmage

By GEOFF STOUTE
gstoute@daily-review.com
When the Morgan City High School spring scrimmage with Franklin went sour Thursday at Tiger Stadium in Morgan City, it went sour fast with a series of events, concluding with a brawl between both teams that prompted the end of the scrimmage about a third of the way through.
Following a Morgan City punt during special teams activities, a player each from Morgan City and Franklin were involved in some extracurricular activity that quickly turned into a massive amount of players on the field pushing and shoving.
While the situation was diffused rather quickly, the scrimmage was called, and coach Scott Tregle lined his players up on the sideline to run sprints and do tumbles as discipline.
The last melee preceded an earlier one that almost turned serious, but was diffused by coaches before it reached that point after an offensive play by Franklin’s first-team offense in its second series.
Moments later, however, things took another turn for the worse as Franklin High School first-string quarterback Tylon Ireland went down with a leg injury. The scrimmage was delayed, and he was taken off the field by Acadian Ambulance and transported to Iberia Medical Center, Franklin coach Brandon Small said.
After the injury, the scrimmage moved to Morgan City’s punting game where soon after, the brawl broke out.
Morgan City coach Scott Tregle said the game-ending incident was “embarrassing” but also a “learning experience” for his squad.
He said the discipline he doled out to his team will make them better, though.
Tregle said the abrupt ending hurt everyone on the team and everyone who didn’t get to play after practicing all spring.
He said Morgan City ran 12 offensive plays, and he was looking forward to the adjustments the Tigers had made for a second first-team series by its offense after Tregle said his top group was surprised by a different Franklin defense during that initial series.
“I was looking forward to a second series to see the holes that actually would have been created, because it was that one unblocked linebacker that was making all the tackles,” Tregle said.
Small didn’t address the skirmish in his post-game comments.
As for scoring, neither first team reached the end zone.
However, Franklin’s first-team offense had more success on its second look at the Morgan City defense. Ireland completed a pass for a first down to a receiver and got another nice run for 17 yards after slipping a tackle attempt by Morgan City’s Kalen Hillen in the backfield. Hillen tracked Ireland down and made the stop, though.
“We started moving the ball a little bit on that second drive,” Small said. “You can tell. Like I said, we were moving and then (the quarterback) got hurt. … Didn’t get a chance to finish the drive because of that injury. Defensively, I’m proud of my first defense. They really didn’t give up anything in the series they had.”
Defensively, Morgan City’s Logan Tingle recorded an interception on Franklin’s second drive and Makye Richard, who had intercepted a pass by Ireland during the Hornets first-team’s initial drive on the field, nearly had a second with a one-handed snare.
Morgan City’s first-team offense’s lone series was led by quarterback Isaiah Escort. Richard had a nice catch and run for about 10 yards on the drive, but Escort also tossed an interception on the drive. Morgan City didn’t have a lot of success running the ball with its first team initially.
“I thought we were playing just as physical as them,” Tregle said. “I thought we played harder than them at times, and they had some bigger guys than us, and they had a little speed.”
Tregle said he thought if the action would have continued, his squad would have begun to be dominant because they were in better shape.
During second-team work, Zariq Perry connected with Toddrick Toussaint for a long touchdown catch and run of about 50 yards for a touchdown.
Perry also scored a four-yard touchdown run.