By BRET H. MCCORMICK, Journal Sports
There may not be any lingering bad blood between the Pineville and Holy Savior Menard football programs, but there’s certainly plenty of motivation in both locker rooms this week.
Not only did Menard hand the Rebels their second of 10 losses last season, Pineville coach Bryant Bell brought in the Eagles’ coach from last year, Justin Charles, as the Rebels’ new defensive coordinator.
“He’s approaching it like a professional, but I know he wants to win like we all do,” Bell said.
Menard coach David Perkins and all of his assistants were on Charles’ staff last season and are very familiar with his defensive concepts. While he and his assistants aren’t worried about facing their former boss, Perkins said it’s certainly in the back of his players’ minds.
“Obviously, they’ve been with him the last three years,” Perkins said. “It doesn’t matter who the coach is, (when) your coach leaves you after three years and goes to another team that you’re gonna play, it’s just the human element. You’re gonna be fired up and want to win that game.”
Pineville is looking for its first winning streak since starting the 2018 season 3-0. Meanwhile, the Eagles are looking to quickly put their disastrous start to the season behind them.
Menard fell behind 20-0 in the first three minutes of its Week 1 loss to St. Fred’s last week as the Warriors scored three touchdowns while running only one offensive play. Perkins said that start was “a tough one to come back from,” but he did see some positives last week that the Eagles will bring against Pineville.
“They’re certainly going to give us their best shot,” Bell said. “With them being 0-1 and seeing us win last week is only going to add to their motivation. They beat us last year. In their minds they’re supposed to win.”
“They’re 1-0, and we’re 0-1,” Perkins said, “and they’re trying to get to 2-0, and we don’t want to be 0-2 and we want to be 1-1, so it should be interesting.”
Pineville and Menard are two of seven Rapides Parish teams who will be in action tonight. Alexandria Senior High travels to face St. Thomas More, Tioga is on the road against Breaux Bridge, Peabody hosts Ferriday, Bolton welcomes Booker T. Washington from Shreveport, and Northwood-Lena faces Elton at home.
Buckeye was the only parish team in action Thursday night as the Panthers (1-1) fell 44-12 to a strong Class A St. Mary’s team (2-0) at Turpin Stadium in Natchitoches.
ASH was scheduled to have its home opener this week, debuting its new turf field against STM, but a delay in the delivery of the turf pushed the installation schedule back.
Instead, the Trojans will unveil their new home field next week against Natchitoches Central and will travel south to the Lafayette area for a second week. The Trojans lost to Class 5A No. 8 Carencro, 46-26, last week, and the task doesn’t get any easier this week against STM, the No. 1 team in Class 4A.
Last season, the Trojans lost to STM 42-35. They will look to improve their offensive execution this week, especially in the first half. Despite senior Ty Feaster throwing for more than 300 yards last week in his first game at ASH, the Trojans were only able to score one touchdown before halftime against Carencro.
Tioga, which is coming off a 58-0 win over Bolton, also will travel south this week as the Indians face Breaux Bridge. Tioga won last year’s matchup, 21-12, at home.
The Indians’ starters, including new sophomore quarterback Cace Malone, saw limited snaps in the blowout win over Bolton last week, but coach Kevin Cook knows this week’s task is a lot tougher for the Indians.
“He’s just going to get better every week,” Cook said of his first-time starting QB. “That’s the goal. When you’re that young and you’re a first-time starter, if you’re doing what you should do, you should see an improvement every week. I think we saw an improvement (last) week, and we’re gonna have to have him show an improvement (this) week going to Breaux Bridge.”
Bolton hopes for a better showing than last week’s shutout when the Bears welcome Booker T. Washington to The Bear Den tonight. BTW is also coming off a shutout loss after falling 42-0 against Wossman.
Peabody, meanwhile, will try to improve to 2-0 on the season when the Warhorses officially debut their new turf field against Ferriday, which took a tough loss on the road last week, falling 20-18 against Richwood.
The final game in the parish tonight features Northw0od-Lena against an Elton team that picked up a big 46-6 victory over Pickering in Week 1.
Thursday’s Result
St. Mary’s 44, Buckeye 12
Tonight’s Schedule
ASH at St. Thomas More
Booker T. Washington at Bolton
Elton at Northwood-Lena
Ferriday at Peabody
Menard at Pineville
Tioga at Breaux Bridge
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