By Kyle Roberts
RUSTON, La. — You’ll be hardpressed to find a more exciting Ruston High Bearcat regular season win than last week’s 17-point fourth quarter comeback at Neville.
For those that don’t already know, last week and with only eight minutes remaining, the Bearcats (6-1, 2-0 District 2-5A) mustered a comeback win for the ages against the Tigers (4-3, 1-1 District 2-5A), scoring three touchdowns, getting a key stop defensively, and even recovering an onside kick to get the win in the 100th meeting between these two storied rivals.
It was the only way the game could possibly have gone.
And now, another tough task ahead: maintaining energy and focus going into tonight against a very talented Alexandria Senior High (6-1, 1-1 District 2-5A) that won the district last season.
The top priorities for the Bearcats this week were to move on to the next game and have good practices throughout. Mission: Accomplished so far.
“I think it’s been fine,” Ruston High Head Coach Jerrod Baugh said. “I think practice has been good — maybe even the best week of practice all the way across the board that we’ve had. Not that they’ve all been great, but it’s been consistent through the week. Hopefully, that goes well as far as getting ourselves prepared for a really good football team.”
A common curse that follows emotional victories is a letdown — an emotional hangover for teams, if you will. Baugh and the team are aware of this and have worked on getting the kids to be laser-focused on the Trojans.
“We really just try to help them get past it,” Baugh said. “I’m pretty honest with the kids — I want them to celebrate, and we appreciate all the accolades that comes with it whenever you win ball games like that. You have to take that in stride as best you can, all while being focused on what the next objective is. You see it all the time in the NFL or college football: somebody wins a big ball game and then they play some lesser competition and don’t play well. And we’re not playing lesser competition: ASH is a really good football team. I do feel like we’ve done pretty well, but we won’t know for certain until we get out and play.”
ASH’s only loss came at the hands of the West Monroe Rebels two weeks ago in the opening week of district play. With a tie game near the end of regulation, ASH returned a kickoff after a player appeared at first to be standing in the end zone, which is supposed to be ruled an automatic touchback. The returner fumbled, setting West Monroe up for a field goal at the end of the night to win 24-21 in Rebel Stadium.
Regardless of the loss, Baugh knows ASH is very talented and well coached.
“They’re really solid all the way around,” Baugh said. “They’re always good in the skill positions — (Head Coach Thomas) Bachmann has done a really good job. At one time, they were only known as a team throwing the ball around all over the place and scoring a bunch of points. Now, they’re a really solid football team all the way around on offense, defense and special teams. They do a really good job of scheming you up. He knows where you’re weak at, and he attacks those areas with some good players.
“They’ve graduated some good football players off of a really good team from last year, but like us, they’ve got some good kids to take those positions. They’re performing and doing really well.”
Sophomore Dalen Powell leads Ruston in rushing with 938 yards and 10 touchdowns, with an average of 7.39 yards per carry. Junior quarterback Sam Hartwell has 330 rushing yards with five touchdowns, while having 1,186 passing yards and 14 touchdowns through the air.
Junior Ahmad Hudson leads the team in receiving with 534 yards and seven touchdowns. Junior Josiah Morgan, who caught last week’s game-winning touchdown, has 285 yards receiving and three touchdowns.
Both ASH and Ruston played in their respective state championship games last season.
Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. tonight and will be broadcast on 94.1 FM and streamed live on BearcatNationNetwork.com.
