Schriever senior group told to stop confusing identity
October 25, 2011
Joseph Herbert Naquin
October 27, 2011
Most junior high football teams don’t even try extra points.
Houma Junior High won the biggest game of its season with one.
The Bulldogs broke a 12-6 deficit to heated rival Evergreen, scoring a touchdown with 2:35 left in the fourth quarter to tie the game.
Instead of going for a two-point conversion, Bulldogs coach Stuart Vitter turned to kicker Travis Manor.
That ended up being a wise decision.
The kicker, who had missed an extra point earlier in the game, calmly shook off an Evergreen timeout and buried his second and most important try, giving the Bulldogs the lead.
His kickoff following the score was just as perfect, sailing over the head of an Evergreen returner for a touchback, which allowed the Bulldog’s defense to pin back Evergreen’s offense and ice down a 13-12 victory.
“We hadn’t kicked [extra points] here in a long time,” Vitter said. “But [Manor] showed up here in August and he did our kickoff team and he told us, ‘Hey, I want to kick.’ He showed us that he had a wonderful leg, so we decided that we’d do some extra points. … He showed us he was right tonight.”
“We still had a really good season,” Evergreen coach Troy Jackson said in defeat. “But to take a loss like that is really hard. I’m speechless, man. … We were so close, but we just didn’t quite do enough. … I’m speechless.”
Beating the Eagles is no tough task for any junior high football team.
Evergreen came into the game undefeated, not for just this season, but for the entirety of the new decade.
Evergreen rolled through 2010 unbeaten, including a 34-18 win over Houma Junior High in last year’s meeting.
They did the same coming into the game with Houma Junior High, winning a lot of their games in decisive fashion.
But records and reputations mean nothing when these fierce rivals take the field with one another.
Mighty Evergreen struck first and never trailed until the games final seconds, holding both a 6-0 lead and also their final 12-6 advantage.
The Bulldogs never backed down from the fight, answering each blow from the Eagles with one of their own.
“It’s a testament to our kids who knew that that’s a wonderful team that they were playing,” Vitter said. “Evergreen hadn’t lost in a couple of years and our kids just took it upon themselves to give that extra effort to do what was needed to get the victory. They didn’t want to end this season and their careers here without this victory.”
Vitter said his players, led by offensive leaders like Justin Theriot and Donald Gordon answered the challenge presented by the Eagles’ tough defense.
The coach also lauded the play of his own defense, led by defensive tackle Charles Clark and linebacker Ramon Hartfield.
That group held the powerful Evergreen offense in check for most of the game, forcing turnovers and keeping the Eagles out of the end zone.
“We knew they had a lot of speed and could get to the outside,” Vitter said. “We just sacrificed a little bit of inside stuff to try and beat them to the outside points of the field. It worked out there at the end.”
With this game in the books, the junior high careers of a lot of the teams’ players are now complete.
But it will not be the last time they see one another on the football field.
Evergreen will channel its best to H.L. Bourgeois and Houma Junior High will feed to Terrebonne.
The rivalry continues into the high school ranks with each side still having another three cracks at one another, just in different colors.
But for now, it’s the Bulldogs who have the trophy in their trophy case and bragging rights on their side of town.
“I want our kids to keep their heads up,” Jackson said. “This is a game where we came out and made a lot of mistakes and they capitalized on our mistakes. … But that doesn’t detract from the kids we have and the season we had. … Our kids need to keep their heads up.”
“Our kids will remember this night … probably for the rest of their lives,” Vitter said from the victorious side of the spectrum. “And they should.”
Another memory was created in this historic local rivalry.
This time, the chapter was etched on the foot of a kicker.
Houma Junior High halfback Justin Theriot fights through a tackle during last week’s rivalry game with Evergreen. The Bulldogs scored a 13-12 victory in the always heated contest, giving the Eagles their first loss in two seasons. CASEY GISCLAIR
