RUSTON, La. — For 23 minutes, things looked pretty bleak for Ruston High Friday night.
Down two scores and almost headed into the halftime locker room, senior Jeremiah Freeman took a kickoff from his own 10-yard line 85 yards down the field to set Ruston up for on the Southside five-yard line. It started a string of 24 unanswered points by the Bearcats to eventually go on and win 38-28 and advance to the semifinals for the fourth straight season.
“Southside came up here ready to play,” Ruston High Head Coach Jerrod Baugh said. “We were getting outplayed in the first half, and really, there wasn’t a whole lot to say as far as adjustments. Really, we needed to execute what was being called and play hard. That’s what it amounted to. Our senior group wasn’t ready to let it go. They dug in and I challenged them at halftime too. I was like, if we don’t get some better effort out of some guys in the second half and execute butter, then it’d all be over after this ball game. And I think that meant a lot to those guys.”
It was a game where Southside appeared to be in total control — even outrushing Ruston 284 yards to 59 in the first half. But none of it mattered as Ruston began to take total control of the football game in the final two quarters to get the victory.
Ruston’s offense would start slowly after turning the ball over on downs with 9:49 to go in the first. Southside made the Bearcats pay quickly with a three-minute touchdown drive capped off by a 23-yard touchdown run by junior Justin Williams — his first of three scores in the half — with 7:05 to go in the period. After a botched snap on the point-after attempt, the Sharks led 6-0.
Ruston answered with a drive of their own and were aided in large part by senior fullback Lander Smith who caught a ball in the flat on a play action pass for 30 yards. Shortly after, junior Sam Hartwell scored from one yard out to give Ruston its first and only lead of the half 7-6 with 5:05 to go in the first.
Williams scored again on the next play from scrimmage with a 53-yard touchdown run. Junior quarterback Parker Dies scored on the two-point conversion to put Southside back up 14-7 with 4:55 on the clock in the first.
Following a Bearcat punt, Southside took over at their own 12-yard line. Two plays later, Dies would fumble the ball, and senior Trindon Moore would scoop it up and score to tie the game 14-14 with 1:35 to go in the first.
Southside added two more touchdowns in the second quarter, one by both Dies and Williams to lead 28-14 with 1:18 to go in the first half. Following Freeman’s kickoff return, junior Ahmad Hudson hauled a score in from three-yards away to cut the Southside lead to 28-21 going into the halftime locker room.
The Bearcats forced Southside to punt on the Sharks’ opening drive of the third quarter and a great return by senior Keilan Davis put Ruston on Southside’s 40-yard line at the 7:21 mark of the quarter. A few plays later, Hartwell would get his second score of the night — this time from 23-yards away to tie the game 28-28 with 5:55 to go in the period.
The defense again forced a Shark punt on the next offensive series and set Freeman up for a 43-yard wheel route touchdown reception to put the Bearcats back up 35-28 with 2:16 to go in the third.
Southside struggled again offensively and turned the ball over on downs early in the fourth quater. Ruston then put together a long drive of nearly five minutes to give junior kicker Joaquin Ramos a look on the far hash mark from 37-yards out for a field goal which split the uprights and put the Bearcats up 38-28 with 6:27 left to go.
“We’ve got confidence in what Joaquin can do, even though in pregame warmups, I don’t think he made hardly any field goals,” Baugh said. “We hadn’t done anything in cool weather to speak of, and then you get out here and it’s cold, and the ball comes off differently. So I think maybe he was getting adjusted to that (in warmups). But we’ve got a lot of confidence in him and knew he could make that.”
Now the Bearcats will face off with familiar postseason foe Zachary, who just upset defending champion Central on the road. It will be the fourth trip to the semifinals for Ruston in a row.
“I don’t know that people realize how tough it is to continue to win as many ball games as we win and the work that goes into it with kids and coaches and administration,” Baugh said. “I’m just proud for our kids to have that opportunity. We’ll need to have a great week of practice and hopefully be ready to play four quarters next Friday.”
For the latest local news, subscribe FOR FREE to the Lincoln Parish Journal and receive an email each weekday morning at 6:55 right to your inbox. Just CLICK HERE to sign up.
