KIM’s bringing Santa’s home here
December 8, 2009
Galeand Raymond Theriot
December 10, 2009
The E.D. White Cardinals spent all last week preparing for the Parkview Baptist Eagles in the Class-3A football semifinals.
Being just four quarters away from a berth in the state title game in the Superdome, the Cardinals looked to shock the Eagles just as they did two years ago in the first round.
Unfortunately their playbook contained no plays to defend their biggest foe all night – Mother Nature.
Rain, sleet and even snow flurries pelted Baton Rouge all night long Friday and the Cardinals failed to regain their footing – literally – at Eagle Stadium as their season abruptly ended 42-0.
Head coach Kyle Lasseigne said there was no way to prepare his team for the myriad of mud, water, slush and ice that awaited the Cardinals when they stepped off the bus.
One of his players – running back Dylan Ledet – even battled hypothermia during the game and had to be tended to at halftime.
“There were some things in the game plan that got wiped out immediately when we walked on the field,” the coach said. “It’s hard to say that but we needed to throw the football and we couldn’t. And that really hurt us.”
The weather-weary Cardinals struggled to do anything all night.
The inability to throw the football proved to be the team’s Achilles’ heel as the offense notched only three first downs and accumulated a mere 64 yards on the night.
Mix that with the defense giving up 230 yards to the Eagles who rumbled and stumbled but refused to crumble with the field conditions and it spelled recipe for disaster for the Thibodaux school.
Lasseigne said it was hard to tell if Parkview was that much better team because his team just couldn’t do anything. Even though the conditions didn’t help Lasseigne is placing the blame solely on that.
“We gave them so great field position and they cashed in on it,” he explained. “It wasn’t our best effort. I’m not going to blame anything on field conditions at all, they were just better prepared than us.”
“Personally, I would have preferred not to have played in these conditions and play on Saturday, but it didn’t work out,” he added.
Special teams played a huge key in the game. Cardinal punter Chase McDonald failed to get a grasp on two high snaps, which lead to nine Eagle points.
One, led to a safety to make it 2-0 after the first quarter, and another, led to a 25-yard touchdown run by Parkview’s Brandon Johnson to put the Eagles up 22-0 at halftime. The Eagles added 20 more in the third quarter to put the game completely out of reach and smash the Cardinals hopes of advancing.
Despite the porous result Friday, Lasseigne said nothing is to be taken from everything his team achieved this year.
“It was a great season,” he said. “It set the tone for our program. It’s a place that we definitely want to be. Hopefully when people talk about E.D. White, they’ll talk about us the same way they do Notre Dame of Crowley, Parkview and those guys. Not a whole lot of people believed we could play in a semifinal playoff game. It’s a credit to our kids.”
As the high school careers of the Cardinals seniors came to an end, the coach is encouraged by the condition in which they left the program.
Despite losing some linemen, the Cardinals return all of their skill position players who will return even hungrier next season after getting so close this year. Lasseigne said he thinks this senior class marked a new era of E. D. White football.
“I love our juniors,” Lasseigne boasted. “I’ve loved them from the first day they stepped on campus. They have been a really hard working group. I told them when they were 10th graders that I’d have a lot of expectations for them. We need to replace some linemen but I like our skill position players. Now, it’s their time to shine.”
A muddy Grant Chiasson (5) looks to his coach for guidance Friday night against Parkview Baptist. The Cardinals season ended abruptly with a 42-0 loss to the Eagles. * Photo by KYLE CARRIER
