St. Paul'€™s travels to Thibodaux for regional battle

St. Paul’s (9-2), the No. 12 seed, travels to Thibodaux tonight to take on the No. 5 seeded Tigers (9-0) in the regional round of the Class 5A football playoffs.

The Wolves turned in a strong outing last week, manhandling the John Ehret Patriots, 34-10, at Hunter Stadium. Thibodaux hung on to down the Covington Fighting Lions, 26-21, at home. By virtue of being the higher seed, Thibodaux is hosting tonight’s contest.

St. Paul’s, after allowing an opening drive touchdown last week, regrouped and shut down John Ehret’s offense.

Wolves’ senior middle linebacker Jordan Bodenheimer was on his game, registering eight tackles, six of which were solos. He also recovered a fumble. Bodenheimer tops the Wolves’ tacklers with 87 stops, including 64 individual tackles. He has five tackles for loss and three sacks.

Senior defensive back Greg Blasiar enters the game with 84.5 tackles, second on the club, with one interception. Blasiar was in on eight tackles with one for a loss. Junior defensive end Houston Bates, who tops the Wolves with 12 sacks, caused two fumbles last week. He is the Wolves’ third leading tackler with 61.5.

Senior Beau Trist roams the Wolves’ secondary and leads the team with three interceptions while also breaking up 10 passes. He tallied eight primary tackles last week.

Wolves’ sophomore starting quarterback Alec Duncan continued his consistent play last week, connecting on 12-of-21 pass attempts for 121 yards with a 6-yard scoring toss to Stephon Smith.

On the season, Duncan has completed 67-of-131 passes for 1,135 yards with seven TDs and just one interception.

Senior wide receiver Patrick Huval, in his first season with the Wolves’ football team, leads the club with 35 receptions for 683 yards and two scores. He averages 19.5 yards per catch.

Huval hauled in five catches for 78 yards last week. Smith is the second leading receiver out of the backfield with 18 receptions for 276 yards and two TDs.

Sophomore running back Mikhail Washington is the Wolves’ top ground gainer with 645 yards on 98 carries, averaging 6.5 yards per rush with seven touchdowns.

Smith, another sophomore, has netted 487 yards with a team high nine TDs. Senior fullback Josh Pereira is who the Wolves count on to pick up the tough yardage inside. He enters with 386 yards with two scores.

The Wolves will need another balanced attack to unseat their unbeaten opponent.

Thibodaux scored on its first two possessions last week against Covington and picked off two passes. Thibodaux fumbled four times, losing three of them. The Tigers gained 349 yards of total offense, 158 rushing and 191 yards passing.

The Thibodaux defense came up big, stopping Covington’s running game for -7 yards while giving up 226 in the passing game.