LPJ Sports Report
RUSTON, La. — The brackets are set, and our parish football teams have learned their respective postseason setups.
Game on.
For the Ruston High Bearcats, their streak of consecutive first round byes looked to be in jeopardy after a Week 8 loss to Alexandria on the road. But as fate would have it, plenty of teams ahead of the Bearcats lost on Week 9 and gave Ruston the chance it needed to finish in the Top 4 with a win over West Monroe in the season finale.
For Bearcat Head Coach Jerrod Baugh, the bye week has proven beneficial in the previous four seasons for his team.
“The bye has been good to us the past few years for a few reasons,” Baugh said. “We’re able to go back and work on some situational things you don’t have a lot of time for when you’re preparing for an opponent. It gives players nursing injuries time to heal. We’ll have home games at least through the quarterfinals. At the end of the day, it’s one less game you have to win, prepare for or risk injury in.”
The Bearcats will await the winner of No. 13 West Monroe and No. 20 Covington in the first round on Friday, Nov. 13. Ruston will host the second round on Friday, Nov. 20, at 7 p.m.
For the second time in as many weeks, Cedar Creek will host Lincoln Prep … this time in the first round of the Select School Division IV playoffs.
The No. 9 seeded Cougars (9-1) will host the No. 24 seeded Panthers (3-7) Friday night at 7 p.m. at Origin Bank Stadium with the winner moving on to face No. 8 seed and undefeated Southern Lab the following week.
Creek defeated Lincoln Prep 49-14 this past Friday night.
“We’re blessed with an opportunity to make a run in the postseason,” said Cedar Creek head coach Jacob Angevine.. “Playing the same team twice within a week isn’t ideal, but we’ve worked our butts off to make it to the postseason. We wear Romans 8:11 on our backs daily and it’s time to rise once again to the challenge.”
