GeauxPreps Week 5 Thursday Night Road Trip: Lakeshore Titans “Pound The Rock”

by Marshall Loeffler // GeauxPreps.com

MANDEVILLE – Lakeshore is under the leadership of a rookie head coach. Belle Chasse is coached by a twelve year veteran. Both coaches know the brand of LHSAA football that works: establish the run, win the turnover and special teams margins, and play defense.

In my opinion, either coach would have had no problem exchanging play sheets, game plans, and halftime adjustments in Week 5. Both teams knew what was coming from all sides. This matchup was about physicality, execution, and finishing a game, and seeing a team carry out that mission through four quarters of ups and downs never gets old.

For Lakeshore, Thursday night was a satisfying example of their preferred brand of football. The Titans defeated Belle Chasse 41-34 in a game that was scoreless after the first quarter, went back and forth after that, and wasn’t decided until the final moments.

After Belle Chasse came back to take a one-point lead, Lakeshore answered with a touchdown and went for two. Brody Loudermilk converted the two-point play to make it a seven-point game with just over a minute remaining.

Then Elijah Ancar gave the Cardinals one more chance with a kickoff return. Belle Chasse eventually faced fourth down with an opportunity in the end zone, but the pass was broken up, and the Titans had their second win of the season. For Lakeshore head coach Hunter Bonvillain, the result was meaningful after three frustrating losses.

“One of the biggest things that really pleased me was our response: on Monday, I challenged our guys,” Bonvillain said. “I said, ‘We’ve lost three frustrating ones. Let’s go out tonight and figure it out. Figure out a way to make it.’”

Loudermilk scored on a 19-yard touchdown run with 10:46 remaining in the half. Bentlie Burt followed with a one-yard touchdown run at 8:20 for BC, and Gareth Hernandez, who was effective in all three phases for LHS, scored on a 21-yard jet sweep with 5:23 left in the half.

The Cardinals then hit another big play when Kai Wallace took a screen pass 56 yards. Izzy Reimonenq finished the drive with a 13-yard touchdown run with 48 seconds remaining in the half.

Loudermilk added a two-yard touchdown run at 7:40 of the third quarter, but Belle Chasse continued answering. A 23-yard touchdown pass on a seam route from freshman QB Mason Sauer brought the Cardinals right back into the game. Loudermilk was again at the center of the Lakeshore attack in the fourth quarter.

He broke loose for a 35-yard touchdown run with 11:50 remaining, and later scored on a 12-yard touchdown run with 1:06 left, and that last run to give the home team a seven-point lead was the big one. Between those, Mason Sauer scored twice on bootleg plays that quieted the home side of the stadium and gave Belle Chasse a late lead that the Titans would have to take back.

“Tonight, I think what we did best was be physical,” Loudermilk said. “I mean, being physical throughout the game, being a more physical team, allowing us to push them back, and really just pound the rock the whole game, and that’s what we do. And that’s the mentality we have.”

For a team that had spent the previous three weeks dealing with close losses, those details finally added up to a different result. “Everybody comes up, and they give you the same line when you lose three close ones,” Bonvillain said. “‘Man, you don’t keep fighting. Y’all keep fighting.’ And we just took that and did it tonight, and found a way to get it done, in a big way, at a big time.” 

Loudermilk’s performance was typical of the way he is able to take control of the Titans’ offense, but the senior quarterback has a lot of experience with 17 seniors and experienced players around him, especially the offensive line. “I work with the O-line every day, in practice, all the plays,” Loudermilk said. “I mean, they’re tough. They’re really tough, and they’re very physical. And I’m really proud of all of them for what they do.”

His reputation as a running quarterback is well established, but Loudermilk said he’s proud of the way his passing ability has developed alongside it. “I’m most proud of just being able to run the ball, but when people expect me to run the ball, I’m still able to make plays passing,” he said. “And, you know, I don’t want people to be too tuned in on a run, because then they just hit them deep, and I know I’m able to do that.”

That balance was important Thursday night. The Titans continued to lean on Loudermilk’s run game, but in the second half, they found a play through the pass game every time they needed it, finding different receivers and getting people involved that had been blocking for the backs all night. For Brody, the bigger significance of the night was what the win said about the identity of the program.

“It brings out how we have been coached to Titan football,” he said. “Our coach, he’s been with the seniors for all four years on the staff, so we know him very well as a coach, and him being head coach, we’re still playing the same brand of football that we were the last few years.”

Bonvillain has a similar perspective, particularly because of his history with the senior class. “I’m very fortunate to be a first-year head coach here,” Bonvillain said. “You know, this is my fifth year overall at the school. I’ve been coaching this senior class. I’ve been coaching them since they were freshmen.” “I was calling the offense for them on Wednesday nights as freshmen and JV ball,” Bonvillain said. “So we have a very tight relationship and a very good understanding of that.”

Loudermilk went straight to Gareth Hernandez when the game ended; those two were a consistently effective duo. They were the Titan players on offense that got the first-down yards, and Hernandez opened the game with a great tackle on kickoff return. Despite injuries, he would not come off the field.

“Gareth, I mean, he’s a player, man,” Loudermilk said. “He can make plays when we need him. He’s very shifty. Can slip through a lot of tackles.” And for Loudermilk, that toughness is part of what makes this group what it is. “I mean, we’re a very tough team,” he said. “As I said before, and being tough like that, it was really hard to stop. I mean, of course, we get stopped sometimes, you know, we shoot ourselves in the foot sometimes, so that’s just something we overcome each time. It allows us to stay physical and solid the whole game.”

The Titans will have another opportunity to build on the win next week when Erath comes to town, followed by Franklinton for senior night. “We got a lot of big games coming up, so we’re just gonna keep doing what we do, and be physical, and win those games.” 

After three frustrating losses, Lakeshore finally got the kind of finish it had been looking for. The Titans were physical. They continued to pound the football. Their senior quarterback made the plays expected of him, and then made one more when the game demanded it.And when Belle Chasse had one final chance, Lakeshore made the stop.

Two teams that have been in the top tier of Division II Non-Select gave each other a great game in Week 5, and these squads should have plenty more of them into the later part of this season.