Catholic League’s Crown Stays in Algiers as Karr Defeats Rummel
by: Mike Strom // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
NEW ORLEANS — The Catholic League football championship apparently has taken up residence in Algiers.
For the third time in as many years, the mighty Karr Cougars have captured the District 9-5A crown while placing an exclamation point on an undefeated regular season to boot Thursday night in recording a 69-28 Homecoming victory against Rummel before a near-capacity crowd at Morris Jeff Stadium in Algiers.
Top-ranked Karr’s 10-touchdown onslaught began with six touchdowns in the opening half that established a commanding 41-21 advantage at intermission and resumed with another four scores split evenly between the third and fourth quarters.
It proved to be more stress than the Raiders, the state’s No. 7 ranked team in Class 5A by both geauxpreps.com and the Louisiana Sports Writers Association, could withstand.
“This is their best team,’’ Rummel coach Nick Monica said of Karr’s three consecutive district champions. “There’s not a weak spot anywhere. They look like a college team when they walk on the field. So you’re already against the eight ball just stepping out there.
“And you’ve got to play well. You’ve got to play well and you’ve got to hope that they give you something. We didn’t play well. Just basic concepts, we were bad at tonight.’’
Karr (9-0 overall, 7-0 in District 9-5A) had a lot to do with Rummel’s misery. The state’s No. 1 ranked squad in Class 5A by both geauxpreps.com and the LSWA played like a team on fire, determined to secure the Catholic League perch it has owned for all three of its seasons in the district.
The Cougars also were successful in securing home field advantage throughout the playoffs as Division I Select’s top power-rated team while improving to 3-0 versus the Raiders in league play. Karr defeated Rummel, 39-31, last season to set the stage for a third consecutive victory in the series that dates to 2007. Karr holds a 3-2 lead.
A perennial power in Class 4A before moving up in classification and joining the Catholic League in 2022, the Cougars now are 18-1 in district play with undefeated championships in their first and third seasons.
Karr’s stellar performance, Cougars coach Brice Brown said, “It means that we’re playing a good brand of football. The crowd here today was like a playoff atmosphere. This league, you can’t beat this league. This league is so competitive. They have great fans. They have great student support. They have great players, great coaches. You can’t beat this league. I’m glad we decided to stay (in the district). But that’s easy to say when you’ve won it three times.’’
Standout quarterback John Johnson served as the Cougars’ linchpin while accounting for six of Karr’s 10 touchdowns with his passing and running and directing the offense to 527 total yards and 18 first downs. In his second season as a starter, the 5-foot-10, 170-pound junior, passed for 389 yards and three touchdowns covering 59, 26, and 25 yards to wide receivers Daejawn Smith and Taron Francis. Johnson also rushed for three touchdowns, all from 1 yard away, while carrying seven times for minus 12 yards and completing 19 of 29 passes without being intercepted.
Smith had touchdowns of 59 and 25 yards while Francis, an LSU commitment, had the 26-yard strike in addition to a 41-yard punt return for Karr’s second touchdown. Smith totaled eight receptions good for 191 yards while Francis had six catches good for 123 yards.
Karr’s running game did not kick in until the second half when the Cougars rushed for 139 yards after being held to minus 1 yard in the first two periods by the Raiders. Backs Tre Garrison and Jarell McGee rushed for 87 and 51 yards respectively in the second half via 5 and 4 carries with each scoring a touchdown.
Garrison ran 63 yards in the fourth quarter for Karr’s penultimate touchdown and McGee followed with a 10-yard score for the Cougars’ final TD. Running back Jermond Macklin had Karr’s sixth rushing touchdown via a 1-yard run to give the Cougars a 20-14 first-period lead.
Placekicker Brayan Castellon successfully kicked 9 of 10 PAT attempts for the Cougars, whose one sour note was nine penalties totaling 80 yards. Karr led 55-28 through three periods before adding on the final two rushing scores.
“This was surprising,’’ Brown said. “We thought it was going to be a four-quarter game. But it turned into kind of a three-quarter game. The offensive execution is what led to (the margin of victory) becoming so big. If we played them again, I don’t anticipate this kind of score.
“In the playoffs, intensity rises. Everything rises. We’ve got some things to clean up. We’ve got to clean up some tackling. We’ve got to clean up some special teams mistakes. We had 10 people on the field twice for punt returns. So we have to clean it up. It’s not perfect.’’
Quarterback Generald Buggage Jr. paced the Raider’s offense with 183 passing yards and two touchdowns covering 54 and 73 yards to wide receivers Kendrick Joseph and Micah Green. Buggage completed 11 of 16 passes without being intercepted while being held to minus 11 yards rushing on 5 carries.
Photo Courtesy: Rummel Raiders Yearbook Staff
Joseph also had a 90-yard kickoff return in the first quarter for Rummel’s second touchdown that briefly tied the score at 14. Joseph sustained a shoulder injury later in the game and did not play for much of the second half.
Green finished with 3 receptions good for 86 yards and a touchdown while Joseph totaled 2 receptions good for 59 yards and a touchdown in addition to the punt return.
Rummel’s ground game was virtually non-existent as the Raiders gained only 33 and 34 yards respectively in the two halves to total 67 and finish with 250 yards of total offense and 10 first downs.
Running back Norman Taylor rushed for 57 yards on 15 carries, but 50 of those yards came on one snap, a fourth-and-1 play in the third period in which Norman raced for a touchdown. Running back Coryan Hawkins rushed for 49 yards on 9 carries.
“We didn’t play too well,’’ Rummel’s Monica said. “You can’t give them anything and we gave them a lot. They executed. They were good tonight. But we helped. We’ve just got to catch our breath now.
“Hopefully we can get a (first-round) bye and regroup a little bit. We hope Kendrick (Joseph) is OK. We’re going to need him offensively. We just have to get back to work. That’s all we can do.’’
“I thought our offense moved the ball,’’ Monica added. “(Rummel’s offense) did what they needed to for the most part. We can’t win that type of game that we got in. That’s not us. That’s not our style.
“Even early on, it’s 21-20 (Rummel leading). We could tell we were not going to win this type of game. So it looks great at the time, but just the feel of it, it’s not our style. So we needed things to slow down and it never did.’’
Johnson played a large role in keeping Karr’s offense moving at a fast pace while directing touchdown drives of 69, 56, 9, 58, 49, 40, 47, 72 and 30 yards to draw special praise from his coach.
“You talk about the lineage of Karr quarterbacks starting with Munchie Legaux to Tonka George to Speedy Noil to Aldon Clark to Skyler Perry to Leonard Kelly to A.J. Samuel. He’s in the same category with all of them. We’ve just got to get him to that big building on Poydras Street.’’
“He’s phenomenal,’’ Monica said of Johnson. “We knew that going in. They’ve got Division I receivers all over the place, but he’s their guy. They need somebody to throw it to them. Then they put a lot of stress on you because you’ve got to decide, are you going to try to put pressure on them or if you give him some time, he’s just a heck of a quarterback. But he’s also a really good runner. The scariest things are his improvised runs.
“Again, they just put a lot of stress on you defensively. And on top of all of that, you’ve got to tackle. And they’re hard to tackle.’’
Both teams now are expected to advance to the Division I Non-Select playoffs as high seeds. Karr entered with the No. 1 power rating while Rummel was No. 6 in this week’s LHSAA Division I Select power ratings.
KARR 69, RUMMEL 28
Rummel 14 7 7 0 — 28
Karr 20 21 14 14 — 69
RUM KAR
First downs 10 18
Rushing 67 138
Passing 183 389
Total offense 250 527
Passes 11-16-0 19-29-0
Punts 5-37.0 1-36.0
Fumbles/lost 5-1 1-0
Penalties 5-18 9-80
SCORING:
R: Kendrick Joseph 54 pass from Generald Buggage Jr. (Robert Vargas kick).
K: Daejawn Smith 59 pass from John Johnson (Brayan Castellon kick).
K: Taron Francis 41 punt return (Brayan Castellon kick).
R: Kendrick Joseph 90 kickoff return (Robert Vargas kick).
K: Jermond Macklin 1 run (Kick failed).
R: Micah Green 73 pass from Generald Buggage Jr. (Robert Vargas kick).
K: John Johnson 1 run (Brayan Castellon kick).
K: Taron Francis 26 pass from John Johnson (Brayan Castellon kick).
K: John Johnson 1 run (Brayan Castellon kick).
K: Daejawn Smith 25 pass from John Johnson (Brayan Castellon kick).
R: Norman Taylor 50 run (Robert Vargas kick).
K: John Johnson 1 run (Brayan Castellon kick).
K: Tre Garrison 63 run (Brayan Castellon kick).
K: Jarell McGee 10 run (Brayan Castellon kick).