CCHS to face district foe LCA Friday

Central Catholic will get a chance to right a wrong from earlier this season when it faces Lafayette Christian Friday in the first round of the Division IV playoffs in Lafayette.
During the regular season, Central Catholic fell to Lafayette Christian, 46-42, in Morgan City during District 7-1A action.
Now, the teams will meet in postseason play as the Eagles (6-4) enter the contest as the No. 12 seed, while Lafayette Christian (7-3) is the No. 5 seed.
Central Catholic enters the playoffs trying to start a new win streak after last week’s 42-41 setback to Ascension Episcopal, a game in which the Eagles were playing for a share of the district crown.
Prior to last week’s narrow defeat, the Eagles had won five straight.
While the season has had high and low points, Central Catholic Coach Tommy Minton said the focus must be on how the team is playing now.
“I think we are playing well right now,” he said. “We’re probably playing our best football right now. I feel like we’re going into the 16-team tournament playing the best we have all year, so you got to kind of take it with a grain of salt – the highs and lows – and just say, ‘hey, it was for a reason and it’s got us to this point playing pretty good football.’”
While last week’s loss was disappointing, Minton said it certainly wasn’t a letdown.
“I think it’s helped us from a momentum standpoint that we’re playing somebody that we played earlier in the year when we weren’t playing real well and lost a close game to,” Minton said.
Lafayette Christian closed its regular season with a 46-17 victory against Vermilion Catholic in District 7-1A action. The Knights are averaging 41.1 points a game and surrendering 29.9 points a game.
Minton said Lafayette Christian quarterback Zach Clement is a “super player.”
“To me, he’s one of the best kids that we’ve played against all year at any position, and we got to contain him,” Minton said. “We got to slow him down. He’s had over 1,000 yards rushing and almost 2,000 yards passing, so his statistics are phenomenal. He makes them go on offense, and you do so much to try to defend him and then you leave open (someone) elsewhere, so we got to be careful.”
Lafayette Christian also has two good receivers and their running back, Trey Breaux, has rushed for about 800 yards this season, Minton said.
“They’re very much (a) balanced offense,” he said.
Central Catholic’s defense got a tune up for this week last week when it faced a similar offense run by Ascension Episcopal.
As for the Knight’s defense, Minton said they haven’t changed much since the teams met in week 4. Minton said they play an “odd-man front” and like to bring their linebackers up and blitz some.
“They have given up a lot of points, if you look at them throughout the year, and they’ve been prone to give up some big plays,” Minton said. “We’ve got to take advantage of that. We got to make our possessions count and get points, because they’re going to pretty much try to do the same.”
Central Catholic is averaging 35.8 points a contest and surrendering 22.8 a game. The squad is averaging 327.1 yards a contest on offense and surrendering just 231.2 per game.
Offensively, Chris Singleton leads the Central Catholic run game with 147 carries for 941 yards and 18 touchdowns. Teammate Bailey Badeaux has added 112 carries for 725 yards and 10 scores, while quarterback Blake Byrne has carried 45 times for 171 yards and three scores.
Through the air, Byrne has completed 59 of 115 passes for 1,067 yards with 11 touchdowns and five interceptions.
His top receiver is Samarick Paul, who has hauled in 33 passes for 590 yards and six touchdowns. Teammate Gregory Leger has eight catches for 262 yards and three scores.
Friday’s game will kick off at 7 p.m.