Berwick shuts out MCHS 39-0

Berwick High School scored three touchdowns in approximately four minutes Friday against Morgan City High School as the Panthers jumped out to a 26-0 second-quarter
lead en route to a 39-0 victory at Tiger Stadium in Morgan City.
While Berwick led just 7-0 after a quarter Friday, the Panthers their second touchdown on a 19-yard run by Keyon Singleton with 7 minutes remaining in the first half. Seth Canty,
who finished the game 3 of 6 on extra point attempts, converted the point-after attempt for a 14-0 lead.
On Morgan City’s first offensive play following the touchdown, quarterback Khai Hartley was intercepted and the ball returned to the Morgan City 18, with a penalty moving the ball up to the Morgan City 9. Two plays later, Singleton scored on a 5-yard run with 6:01 remaining for a 20-0 Berwick lead.
Berwick got the ball again after one Morgan City offensive play as a fumble was recovered by the Panthers at the Morgan City 31. Gonzales, one play after completing a 28-yard
pass to his brother, Zach Gonzales, scored on a 1-yard run with 3:04 remaining for a 26-0 Berwick lead.
The Tigers recovered two muffed Berwick punts on their next offensive possession to keep a drive alive, but the first half ended after a 3-yard run by Hartley to the Berwick 38.
The Tigers had trouble on the drive and throughout the game with bad snaps as the Tigers lost a total of 84 yards on errant exchanges from the center to the quarterback.
The teams played a scoreless third quarter, but Berwick added two touchdowns in the fourth period, a 1-yard run by Reed Gonzales and a 12-yard run by backup quarterback Cru Bella.
“I thought our guys, they played hard all night,” Berwick Coach Mike Walker said. “I think that the taste that was left in their mouth after the jamboree of getting beat, it stuck with them, and they wanted to come out and prove that they’re not that team that they were in the jamboree.”
Berwick totaled 329 yards of offense (294 rushing and 35 passing).
Singleton led the squad with 20 carries for 145 yards and two touchdowns, while Reed Gonzales had 14 carries for 104 yards and three scores. Bella had four carries for 18 yards and one touchdown.
Gonzales completed 3 of 9 passes for 35 yards.
Zach Gonzales was his top receiver with one reception for 28 yards.
For Morgan City, the Tigers totaled 33 yards of offense (24 yards rushing and 9 yards passing).
“When you start the week off with 22 kids missing practice on Monday, the kids hopefully learned from that,” Morgan City Coach Chris Stroud said. “Huge, huge lesson, but you got to give credit to Coach Walker and his staff. They had their kids ready to play. Center snaps, obviously were terrible all night. We tried three or four, probably too many guys we tried. We should have stuck with one and tried getting one or two to correct it but went to committee, and it just got ugly and ugly.”
Treyveon Francois led Morgan City’s run game with four carries for 40 yards.
Devonta Grogan had six carries for 26 yards and an 11-yard reception from Hartley.
Hartley finished 2 for 9 passing for 9 yards with one interception.
“We’re telling the kids we’ve got to get better each week,” Stroud said. “We’ve got a find a way that we can protect the quarterback, give him a little time to throw the ball to some of our receivers who were open tonight. We had guys open, but between bad snaps and no protection, it was tough to get done.”
Defensively, Walker said his team came up with turnovers when needed and got some critical stops on fourth down.
“I’m very, very pleased with how we played defensively,” he said.
Berwick will return to action Friday when it hosts South Terrebonne, while Morgan City will host White Castle Friday.