REPLAY: St. Charles Catholic blanks Shaw in Tierney’s return

LaPLACE – There was no shortage of storylines heading into Friday night’s Week 1 matchup between Archbishop Shaw and St. Charles Catholic.

The Comets, in a community still recovering from Hurricane Ida, began defense of their Division III state championship.

The Eagles took to the field for a regular-season game for the first time in more than two decades with legendary head coach Hank Tierney on the sidelines.

Despite losing 17 starters to graduation, St. Charles Catholic looked like the veteran team on Friday, making big plays in all phases of the game in a 37-0 victory in a game seen live on Crescent City Sports.

Still, Comets head coach Wayne Stein knows his team needs to make significant improvement.

“I’m very disappointed in the way we tackled … and we way we covered kicks,” Stein said. “If we want to try to get to where we’re going, there’s a lot of work to do.”

Ayden Authement passed for two touchdowns and ran for another as the St. Charles Catholic offense found the end zone four times.

St. Charles Catholic scored 15 points in a 30-second plan of the final minute of the first quarter, capitalizing on a fumbled punt snap for a 3-yard scoring run by Davon Sturgis and, after an Eagle fumble on the first play after the kickoff, adding a 75-yard catch and run from Authement to Samare Scott.

The Comets added 15 more points in the second quarter in a span of 83 seconds, on a 15-yard run by Authement and a 26-yard interception return by Michael Hotard to take a 30-0 lead into halftime.

The final touchdown came on a 7-yard pass from Authement to Sturgis late in the third quarter.

Shaw’s best opportunity came on its opening drive, when running back David Kency and quarterback Jayce Lacava produced a two-headed running threat to move from the Eagle 29 to the Comet 7. A bad snap on fourth-and-2 killed the drive and would be a harbinger of miscues to come for Tierney’s team.

“You saw the difference in programs,” said Tierney, one of two New Orleans-area coaches with 300 career victories. “They’ve been successful for many, many years and we’re a program trying to get to the level they’re at.”

Next Friday, St. Charles Catholic has a key test against Lutcher at home, while Shaw opens a three-game home stand with The Kinkaid School from Texas.