Warren Easton spoils Bearcats' opener

The start of a highly-anticipated season for Ruston football began with a similar sting of defeat, with the Bearcats falling 20-19 to Warren Easton Friday at Hoss Garrett Stadium.

Offensive inconsistency and costly penalties halted the early coronation of a season seen by many as another historic journey, and Ruston head coach Jerrod Baugh wanted his team to feel that message postgame after a record-scratching loss.

For as much hype as there’s been, and will continue to be, games are won on the field, not in preseason polls.

“Just like I told the kids, at this point it doesn’t matter everybody runs around all summer and spring talking about how good of a football team we’re gonna be and we need to play that way. And I don’t think we played very well,” Baugh said postgame. “Now, Warren Easton is a really good football team but we absolutely didn’t execute things we needed to take care of.”

The Eagles poured cold water on the pregame energy boiling in Hoss Garrett Stadium, challenging the Bearcats secondary with deep passes, including an 83-yard touchdown pass with 5:56 left in the first half and a 7-yard score in the first quarter.

Warren Easton quarterback Greg Donaldson finished 10-of-22 for 171 yards and two touchdowns – averaging 17 yards per completion.

When Ruston was on offense, drives became one-dimensional with new starting quarterback Josh Brantley totaling five passing yards at halftime and finishing with 36 yards and a touchdown.

Junior Jordan Hayes had another highlight run from 33 yards out with 10 seconds left in the first quarter but tallied 22 yards the rest of the night on 16 carries.

“I expected us to be inconsistent on offense just because we have so much inexperience but eventually we’re going to have to get things corrected to get past that,” Baugh said postgame.

Warren Easton’s secondary bottled up Brantley’s options, but when attempts were made the pass rush swarmed and forced short incompletions.

Ruston’s special teams were boom or bust on the night, giving up 50- and 19-yard returns to give the Eagles prime field position. But when the Bearcats were in need of a spark, Semaj Jones delivered and blocked a punt attempt and scooped up the ball for a touchdown with 6:01 left to play to get Ruston back in the ball game 14-13.

But on the PAT, the Bearcats’ failed to put it through.

“We did some bad things in the kicking game and gave them good position,” Baugh said. “I thought our defense played well pretty much the whole time. The blocked punt was a big deal and I thought it was going to give us some momentum and it did for a short period of time but eventually you gotta put some drives together and points on the board.”

Ruston eventually took a 19-14 lead with 1:23 left in the third quarter on a touchdown from Brantley to Jadon Mayfield, but Warren Easton scored on the ensuing drive on a quarterback keeper from Donaldson to make it 20-19.

“We got some work to do and we need to get in here tomorrow and start correcting some things and try to play a little bit better next week,” Baugh said.

Ruston’s defense was led by Zheric Hill (8 tackles), Jadon Mayfield (10 tackles) and Geordan Guidry (4 tackles, 1 sack).

It’s the second straight season the Bearcats (0-1) dropped the opener to Warren Easton after leading heading into the fourth quarter. A year ago, the Cats fell 25-19 in overtime after leading 19-6.

From that point on in 2022, the Bearcats didn’t lose another game until the state championship loss to Destrehan.

Ruston will hit the road next week for a matchup with the Jesuit Blue Jays down in New Orleans.