Notre Dame crafts complete effort to blank Catholic-New Iberia

CROWLEY — Coaches constantly talk about “team victories” when describing their football squad’s wins.

But look up “team victory” in the dictionary, and you’ll likely see Notre Dame’s 37-0 Friday night win over Catholic-New Iberia.

The evidence:

• No Pioneer running back rushed for more than 63 yards, even though Notre Dame had 240 team rush yards. Four different Pioneers scored rushing touchdowns.
• The Pioneers forced two turnovers, both from different defenders off a unit that limited the Panthers’ high-flying offense to 123 total yards and zero trips inside the Pio 25-yard line.
• Two long kick returns set up Notre Dame touchdowns, those coming from two different players.

The radio station covering the Pioneers (3-0) couldn’t even come up with an individual star of the game. Instead, they highlighted a defensive unit that pitched a shutout against a Panther team that had scored 96 points in two big season-opening wins.

“That was just a solid defensive effort,” said Pioneer head coach Lewis Cook. “They definitely had our attention coming in, they’d scored a lot of points. To throw a shutout on these guys … “

Between Notre Dame’s defense and Catholic’s miscues, the visiting Panthers were ineffective almost from the start. After scoring at least six touchdowns in each of its first two games, CHNI had six total first downs – only two of those in the second half when the Panthers’ deepest drive only reached their own 38-yard line.

“We have to get better play from our quarterback,” said Panther coach Brent Indest. “We had wide open receivers running down the field, we had a couple of shots to make it a decent game. We just have to be able to play pitch and catch.”

CHNI quarterback Diallo Landry was under pressure from Pio defenders all evening, completing only six-of-19 passes for 26 yards, losing two fumbles and getting sacked four times for a combined 26 yards in losses. Only once in the game did the Panthers manage more than one first down in a drive, that one coming midway through the second quarter when CHNI reached the Pioneer 32 before Landry had a fourth-down incompletion.

That was one of only two drives all evening in which the Panthers snapped the ball in Notre Dame territory, the other one coming to a halt at the Pio 45 – and a punt from there was brought back 68 yards by Cameron Nelson to set up a touchdown that made it 17-0.

“It’s frustrating to an offense when you have a hard time finding things that they can consistently move the ball with,” Cook said. “And that really played into our hands.”

What played more into Pio hands was a succession of short fields. Notre Dame scored five touchdowns and didn’t have to drive more than 39 yards on any of the five. In fact, the longest drive of the night came when the Pioneers drove 76 yards late in the first quarter to a John William Lamm field goal that made it 3-0.

“Actually, I thought our defense played well for as long as they could,” Indest said, and in fact Notre Dame was held under its season average in rushing (240 yards) and passing (98 yards). “Our kicking game and our offense just put our defense in a bind the entire night.”

Along with Nelson’s punt return, one that set up quarterback Ben Bergeron’s one-yard touchdown sneak with 7:35 left in the first half, the Pioneers scored after both of Landry’s fumbles. Recoveries by Jacob Dore and John Hoffpauir helped provide three second half scores, with Waylon Bourgeois scoring on runs of four and 30 yards and sophomore backup C. J. Thibodeaux scoring on a six-yard run with just under five minutes left.

But the shutout, which came on the heels of 38-7 and 44-7 wins over Breaux Bridge and Teurlings Catholic, was even more impressive.

“If someone would have told me before that game that we’d played like this on offense,” Indest said, “I’d have figured they’d put a hundred up on us because our defense has been playing so poorly. Really, we stepped up and did a lot of good things defensively.”

Not enough, though, to counter the short fields that the top-ranked Pioneers played on all evening.

“We get some great kick returns, we punt them back, and the defense doesn’t let them out of the hole,” Cook said. “That’s how you draw it up.”

Notre Dame 37, Catholic-New Iberia 0

CHNI      0              0              0              0              —             0

ND          3              14           7              13           —             37

First Quarter

ND – John William Lamm 21 field goal

Second Quarter

ND – Collin Kirsch 4 run (Lamm kick)

ND – Garrett Bergeron 1 run (Lamm kick)

Third Quarter

ND – Waylon Bourgeois 4 run (Lamm kick)

Fourth Quarter

ND – Waylon Bourgeois 31 run (Lamm kick)

ND – C. J. Thibodeaux 6 run (kick failed)

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING – CHNI: Jaden Stokes 4-40, Diallo Landry 12-30, Ben Landry 4-12, Trenayvian Amos 2-11, Trey Henry 5-2, Avery Guidry 1-2. ND: Noah Bourgeois 12-63, Collin Kirsch 13-53 1 TD, C. J. Thibodeaux 9-50 1 TD, Waylon Bourgeois 5-37 2 TD, Alec Prevost 1-24, Kaizer Lamm 1-9, Gabe Menard 1-6, Gabe Doucet 1-2, Ben Broussard 1-1, Garrett Bergeron 2-minus 5.

PASSING – CHNI: Landry 6-19-0, 26 yds.  ND: Bergeron 6-14-0, 98 yds.

RECEIVING – CHNI: Peter LeBlanc 4-10, Stokes 2-16. ND: Gentry Borill 3-64, Landon Meche 2-22, Kaizer Lamm 1-12.

Records: ND 3-0, CHNI 2-1. Next: CHNI hosts Jeanerette Friday, ND hosts Kaplan Thursday.