Semifinal Friday at the Hoss

Ruston High football is on the verge of making even more history, now one win away from making a school-record three straight trips to Caesars Superdome in New Orleans for a shot at a state championship.

But if the Bearcats (10-2) want that opportunity, they’ll have to get past the last remaining hurdle in what’s otherwise been three years of high- level success in a semifinal matchup with the Destrehan Wildcats ( 10- 3) tonight, a team that’s had Ruston’s number in recent playoff meetings.

Since 2020, Destrehan is 3- 0 against Ruston, with the most recent meeting being in the 2022 state championship game, where the Wildcats won 17-10. The Wildcats also took wins over the Bearcats in the 2020 and 2021 quarterfinals. But do past troubles with Destrehan even matter for this year’s Ruston squad, a team with only a handful of players that have even faced Destrehan?

For head coach Jerrod Baugh, he doesn’t believe his team comes into tonight’s semifinal game with reservations or doubts. It’s just another opportunity. And for those that care about knocking off the monkey hanging on Ruston’s back in this series, then they have a chance to say they accomplished something those before them couldn’t.

“To me, all it would do for the ones that have been involved would be to give them extra motivation to get prepared to do better than we have Ai in the past. I don’t think there’s a mental hurdle,” Baugh said. “Probably with West Monroe there was a mental hurdle because they beat us for 30 years. And for a handful of times, Ruston hasn’t been able to beat Destrehan but really these guys weren’t a part of that. There may have been a couple that actually were a part of that. And I think these kids have accomplished so many things that haven’t been done before or haven’t been done in a long time that I think they look at it like this is one more of those things we can accomplish.”

Destrehan, like any other year, is talented and will present challenges. But unlike previous seasons, they had to claw their way back to this point after a 2-3 start to the season after losing both starting quarterback and running back before week one finished. But once starter Jackson Fields returned and backup running back Malachi Dabney found his footing, the Wildcats took off for eight straight wins.

Dabney, a sophomore, helped Destrehan knock off Airline last week in the quarterfinals with 231 rushing yards and 5 touchdowns, going over 200 yards for the fourth time in his last seven games.

Fields threw for 211 yards and a touchdown last week as well, helping Destrehan come into this game averaging 39.4 points per game.

“I see a really good football team,” Baugh said of Destrehan. “They’re playing their best football. I think it’s much like us, if you took away our quarterback and running back out of the equation, even though I’m confident in other guys, there’s a difference in what it looks like and when you’re playing good people, which they do too, you want to be full-go, and they weren’t early on. Now that they’re back, they’ve progressively gotten better and now they’re playing their best football.”

Outside of Dabney in the run game, Destrehan’s secondary might be the strength of the team right now with multiple DI commits at corner and safety. Airline’s pass-happy offense found itself in trouble last week with Destrehan coming away with a pick-6, while another pick was returned 98 yards to set up an easy score.

“You look at the difference in the ballgame with Airline and those turnovers turned out to be the difference,” Baugh said. “We don’t want that to happen to us.”

Johnnie Thiel IV, who signed with Louisiana Tech, is a senior safety for the Wildcats, while cornerbacks Semaj Walker and Deuce Richard round out a strong back-end on the defense – each coming away with takeaways last week.

“ Don’t throw it to them,” Baugh laughed. “They’re really good in the secondary and they have been every time we’ve played them. They break on the ball really well and they do a good job scouting what it is you’re trying to do offensively. We’ll need to make sure we’re reading things the way we’re supposed to and have the right plays called and just execute what it is.”

Ruston has had no trouble offensively over the last two months, with the Bearcats scoring at least 36 points in each of the last five games while averaging over 6 yards per carry in that span as well, including last week’s 49-7 quarterfinal win over Southside. Now, the Wildcats stand in their way.

Kickoff tonight is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Hoss Garrett Stadium. The winner will face the winner of Neville and Central in the championship game.