Tom Dodge
The Blue Jays captured back-to-back district championships in 2017 and 2018.
St. Edmund has a chance for another title Friday in a showdown with Catholic High of Pointe Coupee.
The LHSAA announced last week district championships will not be officially recognized this season, since not all district teams will finish with the same number of games.
But SEH head coach James Shiver said the match-up against the Hornets is a title contest to his team.
“We are going to claim it if we win,” Shiver said. “St. Ed’s hasn’t won against Catholic of Pointe Coupee since 2014 so we really want to win this week.”
The Blue Jays improved to 5-1 on the season and 2-0 in District 5-1A with a 52-7 win over Westminster Christian Academy.
“I was really pleased with the way our defense played against Westminster as we had two awesome goal line stands,” Shiver said.
“I was happy with our running game as we finished with 337 yards rushing,” the coach said. “Westminster focused on taking away our passing game and so we turned to the ground attack.
“We only completed 3-of-10 passing but all three were touchdowns,” Shiver said.
Catholic-PC earned a 43-0 win over North Central to improve to 5-2 overall and 3-0 in district.
The Hornets opened the season with a 49-21 win over Central Private before falling in a 61-57 shoot out to Riverside Academy.
CHPC lost 55-14 to Episcopal, but rebounded to open district with a 28-22 win over Sacred Heart of Ville Platte.
The Hornets continued its win streak with victories over Welsh (14-13), district rival Westminster Christian Academy (49-7) and North Central.
“Matthew Langlois, a LSU commit, is always on every coach’s mind,” Shiver said. “He is a special player – he is our main worry.”
Last season, Langlois had 68 tackles and four sacks on defense and tallied 1,343 rushing yards and 27 touchdowns in leading the Hornets to a state title appearance.
“I think we are balanced on offense.” Shiver said. “If a defense tries to stop the run game, we have enough weapons to get the passing game going.
“It is very hard to take everything from us,” he said.
The Hornets won last season, 30-6.
Heading into the regular season finale the Blue Jays are ranked seventh in the Division IV power rankings, one spot behind CHPC.
The top 16 teams advance to the playoffs.
Shiver said he was disappointed that COVD-19 issues changed the district schedule this season as the Jays did not face rivals Opelousas Catholic or Sacred Heart of Ville Platte.
“There are certain rivalries our school has including OC and Sacred Heart,” Shiver said. “Our kids love facing those teams, so it is disappointing not to play them.
“But we could see them some where in the playoffs.”