St. Martin’s unbeaten behind the leadership of Gendusa, Berry

Don’t look now or do, if you wish, but one of the unbeaten teams in Louisiana after five weeks hails from St. Martin’s Episcopal.

The Saints are 5-0 after thumping The Willow School 49-8 at Tony Porter Field in Metairie on Friday nihht.

Veteran coach Frank Gendusa has done an outstanding job of building the program from scratch. Gendusa explained the progression on The Three Tailgaters Show Saturday morning on NASH ICON 106.1 FM.

“This is year five,” Gendusa said. “When I was hired, I was asked how long it would take to be competitive and I said five years. It’s five years now and here we are unbeaten after five games. It starts in the middle school. We have built it up.”

As usual, the star was running back Harlem Berry.

A sensational talent, Berry rushed 11 times for 178 yards and five touchdowns and returned a punt 63 yards for a score Friday night. The touchdown runs covered 39, 8, 14, 50 and 42 yards, respectively.

“Harlem only had 11 carries last night but when he puts his mind to it, he’s really tough to stop,” Gendusa said. “He has great vision, he runs hard, he’s tough and he has real speed to be able to go. Everything is cooking for us right now.”

While the run game has carried the Saints, another aspect of the team has been outstanding from day one in 2022.

“Defensively, we really made it a huge emphasis on being better this year,” Gendusa said. “In the past, we were able to score but could not get enough stops. We have only given up 36 points in five games.”

Now, the opposition gets much tougher as St. Martin’s travels to Reserve to meet a very tough Riverside Academy squad Friday night in the District 10-1A opener for both teams and a game that could decide the district champion

The Rebels (4-1) defeated Country Day 31-10 Friday afternoon in a game seen live on CrescentCitySports.com.

The game will feature two of the best backs in the state in Berry and Elijah Davis, who leads the state in rushing yards through five weeks.

“Elijah is a really good running back with size, toughness and speed,” Gendusa said. “We played them last year and lost a barn-burner to them. He’s an outstanding player and a one-man gang.”

Riverside defeated St. Martin’s 45-38 in 2021.

This is a different year and Gendusa sees a different ending for his team than a year ago.

“If can stay healthy, I think we can make a run,” Gendusa said. “The kids are really having fun. We’ve had great crowds at home. There’s a whole different excitement with the school and program. We had to learn how to compete and I think that is the case across the board in a lot of our sports at St. Martin’s now.”