Haughton’s 2012 football season ended last Friday night with a 55-20 loss to Ouachita in the first round of Class 5A football playoffs.
Coach Rodney Guin’s Bucs posted a 7-4 record, their 11th straight winning season.
Three other Bossier Parish teams won their playoff openers Friday night and will play second-round games this week.
Parkway (10-1) extending its school record streak of consecutive winning seasons to eight, travels to Hahnville, which upset No. 10 seed St. Paul 25-21 at Covington Friday night. Hahnville is the No. 23 seed in Class 5A, while Parkway is seeded No. 7.
In Class 1A, Louisiana New Tech at Plain Dealing scored one of the biggest upsets in all five classes last week. The Lions, seeded No. 29, went to No. 4 seed Mangham and scored a 29-23 victory. New Tech will play host to No. 13 seed Basile Friday night. Basile beat No. 20 seed Elton 17-16 last week.
The only team seeded lower than Plain Dealing that survived the first round in any class was No. 30 St. Martinville in Class 4A, a 30-29 upset winner over No. 3 seed Lutcher.
On paper, Byrd faces the toughest assignment of any local team this week. The Yellow Jackets, seeded No. 15 in Class 5A, travel to Lake Charles to play No. 2 seed Barbe. Byrd rolled past No. 18 seed Natchitoches-Central 41-13 last week.
Airline, the No. 6 seed in Class 5A, plays host to Jesuit (New Orleans) Friday night. Jesuit, the No. 11 seed, beat No. 22 seed West Jefferson 31-21 Saturday afternoon.
Seedings don’t mean as much this week as they did in last week’s first-round games, and they will mean even less as the playoffs continue each week.
After this week’s second-round games, there will be only eight teams remaining in each class.
But only two teams in each class will make it to the Superdome. If one of the three remaining Bossier Parish teams does it, it will be the first time a parish team has done that since the Louisiana High School Athletic Association moved its championship games to the Dome in 1981.
All of that is ancient history as far as this week’s games are concerned. The winners keep going and the season is over for the losers. That’s the way it is every week in the state playoffs.
Three Bossier Parish quarterbacks had impressive passing statistics during the regular season. Airline’s Hayden Hildebrand completed 62 percent of his passes (155 of 250) for 2,383 yards and 22 touchdowns. Parkway’s Brandon Harris completed 50.5 percent (112 of 222) for 2,093 yards and 23 touchdowns. Haughton’s John David Almond completed 65.2 percent for 1,860 yards and 22 touchdowns.
Benton’s Zach Pierson led the parish in rushing yardage this season with 190 carries for 1,189 yards and 11 touchdowns, averaging 6.3 yards per carry. But Jarred Craft of Haughton, Jaquarius Tutt of Bossier High and Deaumante Johnson of Plain Dealing all had higher per-carry averages. Craft had 886 yards in 126 carries (7.0), Tutt 802 yards in 78 carries (10.3) and Johnson 753 yards in 89 carries (8.5).
The top receivers are Brodrick Jefferson of Parkway with 44 catches for 912 yards and 10 touchdowns, an average of 20.7 yards per catch, and Laterious Pouncy of Airline with 44 catches for 805 yards and five touchdowns, an average of 18.3 yards per catch.
Jerry Byrd is the former sports editor of the Bossier Press-Tribune and an award-winning columnist. You can contact him by E-mail at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
