By Kyle Roberts
RUSTON, La. — Hosting the playoffs in Ruston has become quite familiar over the past few seasons for the Ruston Bearcats.
After securing their fourth-consecutive first-round bye in as many seasons (three of which Ruston earned the top overall seed), the Bearcats (8-2) will now host the No. 16 Westgate Tigers (7-4) out of New Iberia — one of the hottest teams in the state — in a setup eerily similar to the 2023 playoffs where Ruston survived the Tigers in the same round to eventually go on to win the school’s first state championship in over three decades.
“I mean, they were a field goal away from possibly keeping us out of a state championship,” Ruston High Head Coach Jerrod Baugh said of the Bearcats’ 20-18 win two playoffs ago. “They had some opportunities to beat us in that ball game, which would have been, obviously, very unfortunate. That lets you know how good of a football team they were then. I see a lot of similarities between that year and this year. They’re a team and a program that is used to playing late in the playoffs and playing for state championships — they’re not far removed from that situation. And so it’s not like they’re going to come up here and we’re going to catch them off guard or anything like that.”
Westgate started the season 1-4, dropping to perennial powerhouse teams such as Lafayette Christian and St. Thomas Moore before running off six consecutive wins, including over Airline last week 49-14. During that stretch, no team has scored more than 14 points on the Tigers.
The Tigers have a lot of youth coming in to The Hoss tonight — according to Baugh, the starting offensive roster has no senior starter.
“It’s a young offense, but very, very talented,” Baugh said. “They’re going to be really, really good here in the next couple of years. I think that’s probably been some of their struggle early in the year. Whenever you’re dealing with that young of a group, you’re trying to get those guys to gel early, and against a good of a schedule they played, it’s rough. I’ve been there before trying to do that, and getting (young) guys ready and get playing at that speed is a tough thing.
“Their defense has been the mainstay of what’s kept them in all of these ballgame. I think they’ll be really experienced with a talented offense. They’ll be a dangerous football team.”
For Ruston, the Bearcats are coming off the bye week after beating West Monroe for the fourth consecutive season — but unfortunately lost star sophomore running back Dalen Powell in the second half two weeks ago. Junior Kohl Gray came in to replace Powell in the middle of the third quarter for the remainder of the game, and his solid performance helped the Bearcats keep the Rebels at bay for the win. Expect, too, to see both senior Jeremiah Freeman and junior Davis DeMoss get touches, as well.
“Kohl came in and did a great job for us against West Monroe, Baugh said. “Hopefully, that’s what we continue to see out of him — he’s had a good week of practice. He’s a really hard runner; a little bit different than Dalen. But we don’t want him to be Dalen — he needs to be Kohl Gray, and I think he’ll do a great job.
“And Davis and Jeremiah will also rotate in there some. We’re have to move on, and I think the coaches have done a good job of not necessarily changing the game plan, but modifying some things according to who’s back there.”
The winner will play the winner of No. 8 Southside and No. 9 Terrebonne. Should Ruston win, it will host the quarterfinal playoff game at home.
Kickoff tonight is set for 7 p.m. and will be broadcast on Q94.1 FM and streamed on BearcatNationNetwork.com.
