'Checked that box': Northwest football takes down district rival Church Point
You could feel the energy slowly dying out on Church Point football’s sideline as its Week 7 matchup vs. Northwest slipped out of the Bears' favor.
After beating Northwest by two last year, the Bears were looking to end senior night with a dub but Northwest had other plans. The Raiders enforced their will on the ground and capitalized off of every Church Point mistake to snag a dominating 38-13 victory.
“I just heard one of my seniors say ‘I checked that box,’” Northwest coach Chris Edwards said. “We won it for them so I’m happy that my seniors got a chance to experience that. You know, it means a lot. A lot of these people are family, friends or they grow up together so I’m happy they finally got a win against Church Point.”
With this win, the Raiders go to 5-2 on the season and extend their perfect 3-0 record in Class 3A District 4 play. Here are the key takeaways from the Raiders' revenge victory over their district rivals.
Keep those legs moving
There was no denying Northwest’s rushing attack in this matchup. The Raiders ran it up the gut and on the outside. It didn’t matter where the play was called, they moved the chains. Leading this dominating rush game was junior Ke'von Johnson.
He opened the game up with a 3-yard rushing touchdown plus a two-point conversion on the ground to give his team an 8-0 lead. The 5-foot-9 and 160-pound running back was hard to bring down as his legs never stopped moving when he got the ball.
“That was really the plan for the offseason to just keep getting stronger 'cause I came from a 1A school to a 3A school playing 3A, 4A, 5A teams,” Johnson said. “There’s some big boys over here that I can run behind. I’m a small back so I can hide behind them and do what I do.”
Johnson ended the night leading the Raiders offense with around 194 yards rushing and two touchdowns on 28 carries. Along with Johnson, running back Dontrell Etienne snagged a rushing touchdown for the Raiders. They also scored on a fumble recovery from around 65 yards out from senior Kylen Seria.
The passing game also found some success with senior quarterback Jayden Chavis connecting with senior wide receiver Craig Malveaux for a 12-yard touchdown.
“The ceiling is very high,” Edwards said. “I still don’t think we played a clean game, we had some fourth downs we didn’t convert, dropped balls. You know I’m always gonna harp on the negative stuff because I think we got a good football team, and we could just not make those mistakes.”
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Bears show signs of life
After falling behind 15-0, the Bears already looked defeated. While the Raiders ground game was a success, theirs was still developing. On top of that, mistakes were piling up after two fumbles on kickoffs were recovered by the Raiders. This put a ton of pressure on Church Point’s defense which already had its hands full with trying to contain Johnson.
“I was proud of our defense,” Church Point coach Rob Pool said. “I thought their body language kind of suffered a little bit toward the second quarter, but I thought that they held us in the game. When you play somebody that’s good like them your room for error is less, so you gotta execute better.”
The Bears' defense did all it could and leading the way was junior two-way player Jarrison Reese. The shifty cornerback snagged an interception to kick off the second half giving Church Point a little life. He continued to be a sparkplug for his team offensively scoring their first touchdown of the game on an 11-yard run.
He finished the game rushing for over 50 yards on eight carries and had about 20 yards on one catch.
“He’s a football player, he’s a competitor,” Pool said. “He's good in all three phases. We got to find a way to get him the ball more.”
Shannon Belt covers high school sports and the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow her high school and Cajuns coverage on Twitter: @ShannonBelt3. Got questions regarding HS/UL athletics? Send them to Shannon Belt at sbelt@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Northwest football gets revenge on district rival Church Point
