Sacred Heart remains unbeaten with 32-16 road victory Thursday

JEANERETTE – Despite a dominant first half performance, the Sacred Heart Trojans had to come back from a three-point halftime deficit to pick up a 32-16 win over the Jeanerette Tigers here Thursday night.
With the win the Trojans are now 4-0 on the season and 1-0 in District 5-2A play. Sacred Heart will face off against longtime rival Opelousas Catholic this coming Thursday in their home opener in district competition.
Sacred Heart took the opening kickoff and took control of the game immediately, scoring a touchdown on their initial drive, when JT Harper strolled in from three yards out. The extra point was good off of the foot of Alec Gotro and the Trojans led 7-0. The drive went for 65 yards in 14 plays and took 7:48 off of the clock.
The Sacred Heart defense also came out of the gate ready to play. The Trojans forced a punting situation on Jeanerette’s first possession, after driving the Tiger offense back for negative 12 yards.
Sacred Heart’s offense picked up right where they left off on their first possession. After taking control of the ball at the Jeanerette 40-yard line after the punt, the Trojans drove down the field in 11 plays in 4:25 and hit pay dirt once again.
This time it was a one-yard quarterback sneak from Wesley Launey that put the points on the board for Sacred Heart. The extra point was no good. However, Sacred Heart now had a 13-0 lead with 9:33 left in the second quarter.
Jeanerette was not going to go away easily. The Tigers showed their big play capability on their next possession when they scored in one play; a 65-yard touchdown run. The two-point conversion was good and the Sacred Heart lead had been cut to 13-8 with 9:12 left in the half.
The Trojans gave the Tigers another offensive opportunity on their very next possession, when an errant Launey pass was intercepted by Jeanerette and brought back to the Sacred Heart 42-yard line. Ten plays later, Jeanerette found the end zone once again, tacking on another two-point conversion to take a 16-13 lead with 4:09 left in the second quarter.
Sacred Heart tried to mount another scoring drive on their last possession of the half, driving the ball 50 yards in five plays down to the Jeanerette 25-yard line. But, the Trojans could not sustain the effort and turned the ball over ondowns.
“I really thought we had control of the game after those first two long drives,” stated Sacred Heart head coach Josh Harper. “But I knew that they had the capability of breaking off a big play. After their first score, we had the turnover and they were able to put another touchdown on the board. We had a long drive right before half but just could not capitalize on it. There was no since of panic at half. We knew we would be good going into the second half.”
The second half was a showcase for the Sacred Heart offseason program, as the Trojans enforced their will on Jeanerette during the progression of the third and fourth quarters.
It was here that the offensive and defensive lines of Sacred Heart began to assert themselves.
Sacred Heart scored three times in the fourth quarter to pull away from Jeanerette and take home the big district win. Two of the three touchdowns came on drives of 50 and 67 yards respectively and both were scored by short runs from Harper.
The third touchdown came via the defense, as senior cornerback Daniel Scully intercepted a Tiger pass and raced 70 yards for the score.
“Jeanerette did a heck of a better job against our single wing this year than they had last year,” said Harper. “So in the second half we went to our jet package and started pounding the ball up the middle. From that point on we just took control of the game. It was a huge win for us knowing that we are going to be facing some of the best 2A teams in the state the next four games. Being 4-0 and getting that first district win is very important for us.”