Friday was a festival for Central Catholic, Berwick, Patterson football squads

Friday really was a festival for three east St. Mary high school football teams, each of which opened the season with a 40-point performance.

For the fourth, Morgan City High, the celebrations remain in the future.

Berwick took down Morgan City 45-0 Friday, while Central Catholic beat Central Private 47-0. Patterson blanked West St. Mary 40-0.

On Sept. 9, Morgan City will be at Jeanerette, Berwick will be at home against Kaplan, Central Catholic will host Abbeville and Patterson will play its homecoming game against Bunkie.

Central Catholic 47,
Central Private 0

Central Catholic was in control from the first quarter -- control over everything except its own tendency to commit untimely penalties.

Even while hanging 47 points on the board, the Eagles took 13 off.

A holding call negated what could have been Damondrick Blackburn's 69-yard run for a score in the first quarter.

In the fourth quarter, freshman Landyn Ramagos turned on the afterburner to turn a short pass from from lefty back-up quarterback Benjamin Case into a 68-yard score, only to see it called back on a penalty.

Another infraction took a Channing Rivere extra point kick off the board.

But between the miscues, Central Catholic showed balance in its offense and a defense that could bend without breaking.

Blackburn returned to his 2021 form, hammering and slashing his way to touchdowns of 9, 2 and 31 yards on the ground. Fellow running back Thomas Nini provided some hard-nosed support in the run game.

Senior quarterback Caleb O'Con scored on a 1-yard run and hit sophomore Jakavior Kemp with a 32-yard TD strike, both in the second quarter

Junior Tylon Hollins was a favorite target for O'Con on Friday, catching passes of 20, 12 and 3 yards to set up scores by Blackburn.

Central Catholic led 28-0 at the half and 34-0 after three quarters. When it was time for the bench to take over, Case ran the offense competently, and freshman running back Cash Baker scored on runs of 12 and 15 yards.

Defensively, Malcolm Smith recovered a fumble for the Eagles, and Gregory Hamer intercepted a pass that drowned a Central Private threat at Central Catholic's 33 on the game's first possession. Linebacker Andrew Cavalier also helped keep the Red Hawk offense in check.

Berwick 45,
Morgan City 0

Berwick came in with a bonafide running attack, led by 2021 standout Jayden Milton along with Andre Engleton.

They came through with a pair of rushing touchdowns each: 14 and 23 yards by Milton, and 14 and 8 yards by Engleton.

Engleton set up his 14-yard score with a 43-yard ramble on the previous play in the second quarter.

But the Panthers also came out throwing. Quarterback Cru Bella set up Berwick's first score wih a 22-yard pass to Zack Gonzales, then scrambled his way to 1. From there, he hit Luke Tarver with a quick slant to open Berwick's scoring 3:44 into the game.

Bella would also connect with Milton for a 49-yard TD and run for a 30-yard TD of his own.

The defense, led by Darryl Washington at linebacker along with Blaze Harrison and Gage Toups, suffocated Morgan City's running game to make sure the Tigers went to the air out of necessity and not just design.

Rebuilding Morgan City started sophomore Thomas Mancuso at quarterback. Mancuso showed a strong arm.

But connections with receivers were tough to come by, and Morgan City hit only five of its first 16 passes.

And, speaking of necessity, some of Morgan City's sharpest receptions came on fourth down. After an early adventure on a punt snap and a key injury, head coach Aaron Meyer abandoned the punt altogether and ran passing plays on every fourth down.

A couple of Berwick interceptions on long fourth-down passes turned into the next best thing to punts. Antonio Cojoe also pulled in passes of 33 and 4 yards to keep drives alive.

But the fourth down strategy backfired near the end of the first half, when the Tigers went for it deep in their own territory. Mancuso was forced to pull the ball down and scramble, only to come up short of the stick.

Berwick took over at Morgan City's 23-yard line with 33 seconds left before the break. The Panthers needed exactly 6 second for Milton to tear off his 23-yard score run to put Berwick on top 39-0.

Angleton's 8-yard TD finished off the scoring early in the third quarter.

Although Berwick's offense didn't need the help, Morgan City provided some anyway with errant shotgun and punt snaps and penalties for offsides and illegal procedure.

Patterson 40,
West St. Mary 0

One of the most fun parts of the 2022 prep football season will be watching the talented 2021 crop of juniors show what they can do as seniors. Patterson High put on a demonstration Friday.

Senior quarterback Caylon Davis needed just 28 seconds to complete his first touchdown pass on the game's second play from scrimmage. That was the first of six TD passes for Davis.

Davis' first TD pass went for 74 yards to another standout player from 2021, Howard Kinchen, at the 11:32 mark of the first quarter. Davis and Kinchen would connect again for a 45-yard score later in the half and on a 6-yarder that, with Jasper Russell's kick, closed the scoring in the third quarter.

Kylin Brooks was on the receiving end of two more Davis touchdowns, going 37 and 15 yards.

And another Davis, Camron, connected with his quarterback brother for a TD on a 17-yard pass.

One more Davis to talk about: Demond Davis, who was the defensive standout with a pair of fumble recoveries and general havoc against the West St. Mary running game.
Patterson's homecoming will be Friday. The opponent will be Bunkie.

The names of Central Catholic's Andrew Cavalier and Landyn Ranagos have been corrected.