Bulldogs scrimmage Shaw at the Dawg Pound

Fontainebleau’s Bulldogs played host to the Archbishop Shaw Eagles at the Dawg Pound on Thursday in a spirited, hard hitting scrimmage.

FHS head coach Gregg Hudson, in his second season, said his club wasn’t real sharp but that is why you play scrimmages.

“If we weren’t expected to make any mistakes we wouldn’t be out there. The mistakes we made were silly penalties. Off sides calls and not holding the snap count are penalties that are hard to deal with. Those are the things that stall drives, but we can fix those,” Hudson said.

Hudson, whose club finished 6-5 last season, was pleased with the play of his defense.

“We gave up a couple big plays on third down, but I thought the front seven played well. We also had a couple good plays in the secondary,” Hudson said.

Bulldogs’ junior defensive backs Stuart Marino and Spencer Ragas picked off passes during the scrimmage. Sophomore Zack Harper was credited with a sack, forcing a fumble on the play, which was recovered by sophomore Charles Marque.

Hudson said he thought his running backs ran hard. “We have two brand new offensive guards in senior Kyle Kurievsky, who has played about five different positions and junior Ryan Bernard, who moved over from defense a couple weeks ago. “With more experience they should continue to improve,” Hudson added.

Bulldogs’ junior varsity quarterback Brandon Black connected with sophomore Gerard Bell for an apparent 65-yard TD toss after Bell broke a couple tackles making his way into the end zone, but the play was nullified due to a clipping call.

Neither team was able to score during the 10-minute quarter that closed out the scrimmage.

Hudson gave his club a grade of C for their performance, saying they didn’t make the honor roll but it was a good effort.

Shaw head coach Scott Bairnsfather, who led the Eagles (14-1) to the Class 4-A state runner up spot last year, losing to Bastrop, 38-14, said his club needs to throw and catch the ball a little better than they did in the scrimmage. “We had a couple of open receivers that we didn’t hit. Overall, we didn’t have too many protection breakdowns,” Bairnsfather said. “I thought Fontainebleau’s defense was big and physical. We had a little trouble with our running game other than one or two good runs. They were able to hold our running game in check,” Bairnsfather added.

Shaw junior quarterback Andrew Starkey hit Holden Lombard for a 40-yard scoring pass on a slant pattern with Lombard outrunning the Bulldogs’ secondary on the 13th play of Shaw’s first 15 offensive snaps. Bairnsfather, who is replacing 19 of 22 starters from last year’s state runner up squad, said he felt his Eagles’ defense played extremely well.

“We have a lot of new guys out there, but I think they played pretty good,” Bairnsfather said. “They did a good job stopping the Wing-T offense, which is something we don’t see too much of.”

Bairnsfather described his club as a work in progress with a long way to go.

Fontainebleau continues its preparation taking part in the Mandeville Jamboree Friday night, going against the Class 4-A Holy Cross Tigers beginning at 6:30. The host Skippers will follow doing battle with the defending Class 2-A state champion John Curtis Patriots at Skipper Stadium.