by Malcolm Butler
Bryce Restovich passed for 327 yards and five scores to lead Loyola Prep to a 64-13 win over Cedar Creek Friday night in Shreveport.
The Flyers (3-0) led 30-0 at the end of the first quarter and 57-7 at halftime in handing the Cougars (2-1) their first loss of the season.
“We knew it would be a tall task,” said Cedar Creek head coach Jacob Angevine. “We have been telling the kids all week that Loyola is a very talented 4A school that has a lot of guys returning from last year. We knew they were good. We knew they would throw the football. We knew they would be big up front. We knew all of this going into the game.
“We asked our kids, ‘What team is going to come out? Will it be a team that will accept the challenge? Or is it a team that will give up?'”
Restovich completed 16-of-19 passes and hit four different teammates with scoring tosses, including two to Brock Geter (2-68-2) and one each to Ty Walsworth (4-136-1), Charlie McKenzie (4-85-1), and Jake Black (2-27-1).
“They are good,” said Angevine. “They have a great quarterback (in Restovich), and really good skill guys. But one thing about our team that I love, is we didn’t quit. We challenged them at halftime and we came out and won the second half. Our guys didn’t show any quit.”
Trailing 36-0 early in the second quarter, freshman tailback Peyton Harris took a handoff and raced 67 yards for a score for the Cougars first points of the night. Harris ended the night with a team-high 92 yards rushing on 14 carries.
“Peyton stepped up big time,” said Angevine. “He has to. We told him at halftime that he wasn’t going to play much defense. We wanted to see what he looked like toting the rock. He said, ‘Coach, I’m ready.’ We are looking to see what he does moving forward.”
Cedar Creek’s final score came in the third quarter when quarterback Brett Bell hit Eli Slocum on a 12-yard TD pass, capping a 10-play, 37-yard drive by the Cougars. Bell completed 3-of-4 passes for 29 yards and the score, including completions to Blake Robinson and Gunner Fontenot.
Loyola scored on its first eight possessions of the night and six of its eight scoring drives started in Cedar Creek territory. Fontenot and Harris led Creek with 7 tackles each.
“We came out fired up on defense on Loyola’s very first possession,” said Angevine. “We had them in a third and long, but we got out of position and gave up a score. And then we fumbled the first snap on offense. With Loyola being the team that they are with the experience they have, they took advantage of our mistakes. From that point on it was Loyola’s ball game.”
Cedar Creek rushed for 146 yards in the game.
The Cougars will open up district action next Friday night when they host Glenbrook at 7 p.m. at Origin Bank Stadium.
“I am excited to see what we have moving forward,” said Angevine. “How are we going to rebound from this? We had a big win last week, and we got the opposite result this week. So what type of team are we going to have going into week four and the start of district play.”
