MCHS beats rain, lightning, Hurricanes

Morgan City overcame Mother Nature Friday night and the North Central Hurricanes, battling the rain, lightning and the St. Landry Parish-based team for a 44-16 win.
Both teams endured rain most of the game and a 30-minute lightning delay in the third quarter.
"Unfortunately, the lightning slowed us up, and then we had to come out and run the clock a little more," Morgan City Coach Scott Tregle said. "So we didn't get a lot of action, but I thought, overall, we played a good game."
The Tigers defense helped propel the team to the win, recovering two early fumbles that led to scoring drives. Morgan City (2-1) recorded a safety and returned an interception for a touchdown, all in the first half.
Special teams also contributed with a kickoff return for a touchdown in the first half.
Morgan City's defense has been doing a good job of putting pressure on opposing offenses and getting turnovers every game this season, Tregle said.
On the game’s first play from scrimmage, the Tigers recovered a fumble on North Central's 10-yard line due to a bad snap. That fumble led to a 7-yard Ethan Scioneaux touchdown run with 11:04 to play in the first quarter.
Another lost fumble on the Hurricanes' next possession led to another Morgan City touchdown, this time on a 4-yard run by Trey Derouen.
Morgan City had good field position on its third possession with the ball at the Hurricanes 22 but was unable to capitalize on the drive, which ended in a missed 35-yard field goal.
North Central (0-3) then drove 81 yards and scored on a 46-yard run by Wilshawn Williams with 2:10 left in the first quarter. The Hurricanes converted on a two-point conversion to cut the Tigers' lead to 14-8.
But Morgan City would score once more before the end of the quarter on a 1-yard Devonta Grogan touchdown run.
Grogan helped the Tigers get the ball back quickly, returning an interception to North Central's 15-yard line. The Tigers' offense moved within a yard of the end zone at the Hurricanes' 1 but ended up turning the ball over on downs at the Hurricanes 9.
The Tigers' defense stepped up again, though, scoring on a safety with 10:01 remaining in the second quarter.
Grogan then showed he wasn't just valuable on offense and defense when he returned a kickoff 60 yards for a touchdown to give Morgan City a 30-8 lead.
Williams answered that big play with an 80-yard touchdown run with 9:16 remaining until halftime. The Hurricanes converted another two-point conversion to bring the score to 30-16.
After the Tigers turned the ball over on downs on their subsequent possession, the defense came through again when Logan Tingle returned an interception 53 yards for a touchdown with 3:13 remaining before the half. Morgan City went into halftime with a 37-16 lead.
Five minutes into the third quarter, the referees called a lightning delay that lasted about 30 minutes. It rained most of the game and started raining harder just before the game resumed play.
The referees used a running clock for much of the rest of the game.
The second half’s lone score came when Scioneaux broke a 52-yard touchdown run with 3:30 left in the third quarter.
Scioneaux led the Tigers’ rushing attack with 70 yards on six carries and two touchdowns. Morgan City had 218 yards of total offense to North Central's 225 yards.
Morgan City recorded 192 yards rushing.
The Tigers started slow offensively but picked up later in the game, Tregle said.
"We've still got some stuff to work on to get better," he said.
One positive for the Tigers was that most players got in the game, Tregle said. The Tigers have a young, inexperienced offense, and “we've just got to keep getting better every week,” Tregle said.
Tregle said a few of his players had minor injuries, "just little bruises and bumps," during the game, but the Tigers had other players who could do their job.
“So we just held them out,” Tregle said.
North Central coach Jacobi Thierry said Friday's weather conditions were “by far not the best,” but his team was glad it was able to play.
“We got a call on the way out here that it was starting to flood a little bit,” Thierry said.
The game was a fight for the Hurricanes as they've had several players out the past two weeks with injuries, Thierry said.
This year's Morgan City-North Central game was closer than the 2015 matchup where the Tigers shut out North Central, 57-0.
Thierry said he was proud of how his team played without some key players.
North Central has just three seniors, nine freshman and “four others who have never played football a day in their life” before this season, Thierry said.
“It's going to be a challenge the whole season,” he said. “We're just taking every game in stride and hopefully ... build on every game.”
This week, Morgan City will face Cohen for the Tigers’ homecoming. Tregle said he will use a similar game plan and "try to get on them early," he said.
“We're going to try to keep the kids' head in the game and hopefully put on a good performance the first half, and we'll see what happens (in) the second half,” Tregle said.

MC NC
First Downs: 8 11
Rushing yards: 192 195
Passing Yards: 26 30
A-C-HI: 5-1-0 11-1-2
Total Yards: 218 225
Penalties-yds: 4-25 4-25
Fumbles-lost: 6-1 10-2

Score by Quarter
MC 21 16 7 0 -- 44
NC 8 8 0 0 -- 16

Scoring Summary
First Quarter
MC: Ethan Scioneaux 7-yd. run (Quang Nguyen kick) 11:04

MC: Trey Derouen 4-yd. run (Nguyen kick) 8:24

NC: Wilshawn Williams 46-yd. run (Vonderick Kimmerson run) 2:10

MC: Devonta Grogan 1-yd. run (Nguyen kick) 1:05

Second Quarter
MC: Safety 10:01

MC: Grogan 60-yd. kickoff return (Nguyen kick) 9:45

NC: Williams 80-yd. run (Jimmerson run) 9:16

MC: Logan Tingle 53-yd. interception return (Nguyen kick) 3:30

Third Quarter
MC: Scioneaux 52-yd. run (Nguyen kick) 3:30

MCHS Individual Stats
Rushing
Ethan Scioneaux, 6-70, 2 TDs; Matt Griffin, 3-37; Devonta Grogan, 2-33, 1 TD; KeSean Francois 3-26; Trey Derouen, 2-10, 1 TD; Kalen Hillen, 4-7; Hayden Barron, 4-4; Isaiah Escort, 1-3; Chris Gant, 2-3; Zion Landry, 1-0; Tate Alcina, 2-(-1)

Passing
Isaiah Escort, 1-5-0, 26 yds.

Receiving
Kalen Hillen, 1-26