By T. Scott Boatright
The old football adage says that offense sells tickets but defense wins games.
That saying held true Friday night as the Ruston Bearcats held on for a 35-28 Homecoming win over Alexandria Senior High at L.J. Hoss Garrett Stadium
And it was big defensive stops at the end of both halves that allowed Ruston to walk off with the hard-fought win that pushed the Bearcats to 6-0 on the season in their District 2-5A season opener.
That first big stop came with time winding down in the first half as the Trojans moved all the way down to the Ruston 2-yard line before turning the ball over on a fourth-and-goal situation. Three straight runs gained a total of three yards and then on fourth down and goal from the one, the Bearcats knocked down the pass attempt to end the threat.
The Bearcats followed that up with its smashmouth ground attack as runs of 20 yards by Dylone Brooks and 34 yards by Lander Smith helped Ruston move down to the ASH 4-yard line before quarterback Josh Brantley powered his way to paydirt with 16 seconds remaining in the first half that put RHS on top 21-0 at intermission.
But ASH would battle back in the second half after recovering a pair of onsides kicks to tie things up 21-21 with 2:36 left in the third quarter.
Ruston went back on top 28-21 at the 10:02 mark of the final stanza on a six-yard scoring scamper by Jordan Hayes, but ASH quickly countered by driving 72 yards on nine plays to tie things up at 28-28 with 6:04 remaining.
The Bearcats were forced to punt on the ensuing series with ASH taking over at its own 26-yard line with 4:45 remaining.
That’s when Ruston came up with another big defensive stop when Aiden Anding picked off ASH quarterback Ty Feaster on the Trojans’ next play from scrimmage, and the Bearcats took advantage of that defensive stop with Brooks putting Ruston on top 35-28 on a three-yard scoring scamper with 1:16 remaining in the contest.
That gave ASH one final drive to try to push the game into overtime or go for the win if they would have scored.
But the Bearcats had one last defensive stand in store to make sure they celebrated Homecoming with a win.
Taking over at its own 23 with 1:15 left on the clock, the Trojans completed a 17-yard pass on first down to reach their own 40-yard line.
After throwing an incompletion on the ensuing first down, the Bearcats were finally able to pressure Feaster on second down with pressure by Ruston’s Geordan Guidry forcing an incompletion.
The Trojans were then hit with an illegal procedure call before the Bearcats forced another incompletion on third down thanks to a dual-quarterback hit by Guidry and Ahmad Breaux.
Then on fourth down, Guidry again blasted through the ASH offensive line and picked up his second sack of the contest to give the ball back to the Bearcats, who only had to kneel twice before beginning their Homecoming victory celebration.
“I was angry,” Guidry said about that final defensive series for the Bearcats. “I wanted to win real bad, and I was angry. It was a slow night. It wasn’t a really good night for us on defense. But big-time players make big-time plays in big-time moments.
“And it was time at the end of the first half and the end of the game. We knew it was time to make those stops.”
RHS Defensive Coordinator Kyle Williams wasn’t shocked by the fight put up by the Trojans’ offense.
“We knew they were a good offensive team,” Williams said. “We saw that on film. We knew that between their screen game and their vertical athleticism ASH would be a tough challenge. They scored 20-something points on Carencro and St. Thomas More, which are both good teams.”
Williams admitted the game was by no means Ruston’s best defensive effort of the season.
“We made a lot of mistakes tonight that we hadn’t made all year,” Williams said. “Honestly I don’t think we handled the distraction of what was going on with Homecoming and all that very well. Even though at halftime they hadn’t scored any points, we did not defend things the way we should have been defending.
“Any time you’re playing a (ASH Coach Thomas Bachman) team, they’re not going to run a lot of time off of the clock with their quick strikes and scores. You’ve got to be on guard all the time. They get a couple of turnovers, they get an onsides kick, we get a jump ball snagged for a score and then you’re in a fight against a really good football team.”
But with time running down, an ASH team that had avoided Ruston’s defensive pass rush for most of the game wasn’t able to use its screen game that helped Feaster and the Trojans total 236 passing yards and four scores through the air against the Bearcats.
“They didn’t have a tight end and an H-back in the game,” Williams said of that final ASH drive. “They were protecting six or seven against our four guys early. But then they had to go four receivers with open personnel on the field and we’ve got our four on their five or whatever we’re going and actually we were rushing three most of the time there using (linebacker) Jadon (Mayfield).
“So they got out of their protection stuff because they had to try and push the ball down the field and couldn’t have two-on-one match-ups against us and our guys took advantage.”
RHS coach Jerrod Baugh said it was that ASH screen game off of Feaster’s quick release that kept the Trojans in the game until the final seconds.
“You could tell Coach Bachman had done a really good job watching video and finding some weak spots in what it was we had going,” Baugh said. “We had some misalignment stuff and some miscues defensively. We tried to fix those at halftime but I think we still had some issues with that in the second half.
“I think all-in-all — and I said it going into the ballgame — ASH has just got some really good skill guys where if you give them a little bit of space, that quarterback gets the ball out of his hand in a hurry. That gave us some problems, but that’s to be expected playing a really good football team.”
Baugh also admitted that the Trojans burning two timeouts early in the second half helped with Ruston’s final defensive stop.
“That H-back added another dimension to their offense to help with blocking, and they also used a lot of screens early in the game to offset some of the pressure that we were probably going to be able to get on them. Coach Bachman knew that going into the ballgame.
“So that slowed us down some but then when they were limited in time with only one timeout left on that final drive, I think he didn’t want to take a chance on that screen stuff, so they had to drop back and just throw the ball, and that’s what our guys guys were able to get after the quarterback on.”
