The Eagle Times

Last Friday night, the St. John Eagle football team took on cross-town rival Plaquemine High Green Devils in their 2007 Jamboree at Green Devil stadium. The visiting Eagles went into the Jamboree with a win over Clinton in their pre-season scrimmage. The Eagles of St. John did very well against the Clinton Eagles, and were expected to handle the Green Devils of Plaquemine High without a problem.

The game got off to a fast start with both offenses moving the ball without a problem. For the most part of the first half the Eagles used their no-huddle, spread offense. St. John receivers had no trouble getting away from Green Devil defensive backs, but they couldn’t seem to hold on to the football. St. John quarterback, Galen Johnson, threw the ball well, but only few of his receiver’s hands were able to make a catch in the game. One of those catches came from junior receiver/defensive back, Guy Morgan, which turned out to be a touchdown. The touchdown was a product of coach Bruce Hoffman’s spread offense. “It was an out route. When I caught it, I turned up field and made a move on one defender, and knew I was going to score,” said Morgan, on his touchdown run. “After I scored, I thought we would score on every offensive drive,” stated Morgan. Morgan’s thoughts didn’t seem to go as planned in his head. The Eagles struggled on offense for the remainder of the game with the exception of one more touchdown.

The defense had a tough time with the Green Devil offense during the first few series. Containing Green Devil quarterback, Ryan Travis, seemed to be a tough task for the Eagle offense. It later proved to be just early game jitters, as the Eagle defense showed they can handle their own against the 3-A Green Devils later in the game. Morgan thought that the Eagle defensive backs and linebackers did a good job on defense, while the linemen could’ve stepped up to the challenge better.

Overall, the Eagles came out on top with a 12-6 win over their cross town rival. It was a slow start, but the Eagles did what they had to do. “We need to be more discipline, learn more plays, and stay focused during games,” said Morgan when I asked him about improvements that need to be made for the Eagles to have another successful season.

This week the Eagles are going to Houma, Louisiana to play 5A H. L. Bourgeois. This is the first 5A team the Eagles are playing in the history of the football program.

The Eagle Football Team is pumped up about playing their first 5A school. I asked Senior Defensive End, Matthew Zito “How do you feel about playing H. L. Bourgeois?”, and he replied “I feel that we can compete with them, we are not scared to play with anyone, and if we can play with Evangel, we can play with anybody.” He also mentioned, “We have enough talent on the football team to play with the best of them.” He also said, “It is a good challenge because it will help us get ready for the playoffs when we will have to face better teams that are 2A football teams like us.” Zito said, “We hope to beat this team on Friday, so that people can stop talking about us not having a winning season, and not going back to the dome.” I asked him about H. L. Bourgeois not playing on both sides of the ball and he stated, ” I am not scared about that because I feel like we are in better shape than anybody in the state.”

I have been hearing stories about how big and fast H. L. Bourgeois’ team is. I also asked St. John star player Rodarrick Jones about what he thought of the game on Friday and he said, ” I am very excited to be playing them because it will show where we stand as a team right now, I am not trying to predict anything, but I would be glad if we come out with a win on Friday night”.

So the stage is set, the Eagles are pumped and ready to go down to Houma and make history, once again. GO EAGLES!

By Clint Ourso and Jacobi Poche