Ruston falls to Neville

Ruston’s 20-game win streak is no more.

The No. 4 ranked Neville Tigers (7-0, 2-0) walked out of Hoss Garrett Stadium with a 26-21 win over No. 1 Ruston (6-1, 1-1) on Friday in a penalty-filled affair, all while converting 8 of 12 third down attempts, to knock off the Bearcats from their unbeaten perch.

The Bearcats finished with a season-high 13 penalties for 127 yards and punted on five of their nine drives on the night.

“Anytime you’re labeled as the number team, everybody’s fixing to get up to play you,” Baugh said. “And we’ve gotta be able to execute at a really high level. And right now, we’re not.

“We’ll either do one of two things: we’ll either decide to get out and work during practice and get things corrected or we’re going to not. If we’re going to be the team I feel like we can be, we’ll get out and go to work and get things corrected. One loss doesn’t make or break your season. We’ve gotta realize Neville’s a really good football team and they outplayed us tonight.”

Neville led 14-7 at halftime, getting great action in its screen passing game and passes out of the flat, picking up first down after first down on Ruston – scoring touchdowns on two of its final three drives of the second half with solid execution from sophomore Parker Robinson to his targets as they churned out big gains. Robinson finished his night 17-24 for 205 yards, 2 touchdowns, and an interception.

Neville had a chance to open the scoring further in the first half, but senior cornerback Aidan Anding jumped a pass and intercepted Robinson as Neville got to the Ruston 18 after marching down the field thanks to Ruston penalties and missed tackles. It was Anding’s third interception of the year.

Ruston, outside of a streaking 70-yard touchdown run by Josh Brantley with 3:38 left in the first quarter, spent most of its time punting in the first half – booting the ball back to the Tigers on three of its five drives in the first half.

The second half started with more of the same inefficiency for Ruston, with the Bearcats going three-and-out for six yards on its first drive of the third quarter, right after the defense held Neville to a punt on its opening series.

The Bearcats went back to Brantley on the following drive to tie the game at 14-14, punching in a 2-yard score after a fourth down pickup inside the 10. But just 11 seconds later, Neville’s Jayden Reed returned the ensuing kickoff 71 yards for a touchdown to put Neville back in front 20-14 – failing on its two-point try.

Ruston came back on its following series ready to answer, marching 10 plays for another go-ahead touchdown after senior linebacker Zheric Hill punched in a 7-yard touchdown run to put Ruston ahead 21-20 with 9:19 to play.

But the Tigers just kept clawing back and picking up first downs, going back in front 26-21 on a 5-yard rushing touchdown after just a seven-play drive with 5:37 left. Ruston’s response was a three-and-out punt, giving the Tigers the ball back with a five-point lead with 3:10 left.

Ruston’s defense couldn’t get the stop it needed, allowing the Tigers to pick up three first downs to ice the game away.

Ruston outgained Neville 344 to 301 and outrushed the Tigers 198 to 101 but the big conversions in the moments that mattered proved to be the difference. After holding Neville to just 3-12 on third down in last year’s win, Neville went 8-12 on Friday – the most third down conversions Ruston has allowed this year.

And fittingly on the final drive, Ruston was called for a facemask to give Neville an unearned first down – the 13th and final penalty of the night.

“It has been all year, and we haven’t cleaned that up,” Baugh said of penalties causing issues. “You play against a really good football team and they’re executing and you’re not, you can’t have those setbacks. We gotta get that cleaned up. We gotta work at it with the kids.”

Ruston averaged 5.89 ypc but take away Brantley’s long score and the Bearcats averaged 3.8 ypc, while the offensive line allowed Neville to put up 5 TFL and 3 sacks.

“I think this may have been an offensive line we started at some point earlier in the year. I’ll have to go back and look. It’s been a shuffle,” Baugh said. “We’ve got to get some guys healthy and get the same group out there. At the end of the day, they gotta go to work. We’re just not doing a good enough job during practice working and knowing what we’re fixing to get matched up against some really good football teams who are going to bring their best shot.”

Brantley finished with 13 carries for 99 yards and 2 scores while sophomore Ahmad Hudson had 5 catches for 93 yards. Hill led the defense with 9 tackles.

(Ruston (6-1, 1-1) faces Alexandria Senior High (7-0, 2-0) next Friday in Alexandria.