Karr pulls away late, claims second-consecutive state title in win over rival St. Augustine

by: Travis Connelley // GeauxPreps.com Contributor

NEW ORLEANS — The rivalry on the gridiron between tradition-rich programs in St. Augustine and Edna Karr has had multiple chapters written over the years. 

On Saturday, a new one was written, and it was arguably the biggest one yet as the Purple Knights and the Cougars met in the LHSAA Division I Select Championship with Karr prevailing 49-14. The win gave head coach Brice Brown and Karr their 27th consecutive win and second-consecutive state championship. 

“Number one, I can’t say just how proud I am of this team, these young men have been with me for four years and some of them five, coming from our feeder school Alice Hart right down the street and it is a bittersweet day because some of them I won’t see next semester because they will be at their new school,” Karr head coach Brice Brown said. “But I am so proud of how they handled this adversity and how they have grown.” 

The much-hyped game, witnessed in person by 34,500 fans inside the Caesars Superdome, saw mostly a defensive battle early on.

Both offenses found some success moving the ball, but ultimately, the opposing defenses stepped up, halting the opponents’ drives, contributing to a scoreless first quarter. 

Karr broke through early in the second quarter, taking advantage of a short field. With the ball on the Purple Knight 18-yard line, Cougar quarterback John Johnson led a 5-play drive that wrapped when he found the end zone from a yard out, giving Karr the 7-0 advantage following the extra point by Brayan Castellon.

St. Augustine tried to answer, but the Cougar defense shined once again, forcing a Purple Knight punt attempt. The snap sailed a bit high, forcing Miguel Whitley to try and pick up the first down on the ground. He was tackled short of the line to gain, giving the Cougars the ball at the Purple Knight 34-yard line. 

Three plays later, the Cougars found the end zone once again from a yard out, but this time the score came from running back Tre Garrison. Castellon’s extra point made it 14-0 Karr with just over 8:00 to go until halftime. 

After the game, Johnson commented on how his running-back Garrison has become yet another weapon in the Karr offensive arsenal, which has implemented a heavier rushing attack. 

“I’m very proud of Tre,” he said. “They still had a spy on me the whole game, but that just allows Tre to show that he can make plays. Honestly, I’m just so happy for Tre. You can’t stop both of us, so you have to pick your poison, and we have these great receivers on a second level, and then we have the great O-line. We have a really balanced team.” 

Following a fumble recovery by the Cougars, Karr kept the momentum on the home side, and it resulted in yet another score as Johnson led his offense down inside the red zone before hooking up with Gregory Wilfred on a 13-yard touchdown pass, increasing the lead to 21-0 for the Cougars. 

St. Augustine was down but not out and showed great fight in the third quarter. With Karr threatening once again, Chad Jones made a big play for the Purple Knight offense, stepping in front of a pass and returning it 90 yards for a pick-six, and with the Darren Coates PAT, St. Augustine pulled within two scores at 21-7. 

But the score only motivated the Cougars to bounce back, and they did so in a big way. Johnson led another successful drive and recorded his second rushing touchdown of the evening, this time from three yards out, and with the Castellon kick, Karr pushed its lead back to three scores at 28-7 with 3:59 to go in the third quarter. 

Despite the deficit, St. Augustine got another big break on the ensuing kickoff when Derrick Bennett returned the kick 88 yards for a touchdown, cutting the Karr lead in half at 28-14. 

Once again, the Karr offense showed little trouble moving the ball, getting a good mix of run and pass plays from Johnson and key rushes from Garrison putting together a 16-play, 88-yard drive that took 8:15 off the clock and increased the Cougar lead after Johnson just broke the plain on a quarterback keeper from a yard out, making the score 35-14. 

From there, the Cougar defense flexed its muscle once again, being a thorn in the sides of the Purple Knights, getting a Torrence Sanders 73-yard fumble return for a touchdown, followed by an Ian Gray interception, which was returned 26 yards, setting up another Johnson short touchdown run on the ensuing possession, making the score the eventual final. 

For the game, Johnson finished 15-of-18 for 169 yards and one touchdown through the air to go along with 11 carries for 27 yards and four touchdowns on the ground. Garrison had a big workload with 41 carries for 189 yards and one touchdown. For his effort, he earned the Most Outstanding Player award. 

Vashon Coulon led the Purple Knights with 171 yards on 12-of-23 passing. Jones had a big showing with a team-high 16 tackles, one for a loss, to go along with his big interception return for a score.

St. Augustine head coach Robert Valdez reflected on the game, and while disappointed in the outcome, he expressed the level of pride that he has in his players for the fight that they showed against a tough Karr team. 

“I’m proud of these guys and proud of the work that we put in to get to this point,” he said. “We had some miscues, and when you play the No. 1 team in the state, you can’t have those mistakes. We had six turnovers, and that can’t happen. But like I said it is a testament to the work that we have put in to get to this point. We will lick our wounds and start back in January to get back to this point again.”

After being awarded the state championship trophy, Karr’s defensive tackle and LSU signee Richard Anderson presented it to the mother of fallen former teammate Corey Adams, an Ole Miss football player who was shot and killed in July near Memphis, Tennessee. Brown said that in addition to Adams, the Cougars also dedicated the season to former Karr football coach Albert Ott, who also passed away over the summer. 

“I believe what Coach Ott stood for was ‘don’t quit’, toughness, and grit,” Brown said. “It was tough going to his funeral. There were different circumstances with Coach Ott, a legend at Karr, and Corey (Adams), a student who was just a freshman in college. And with trying to honor both the way that we did, I think that it just puts things in perspective, and it shows how tight-knit we are at Karr and with both situations, which are different, but still we are trying to honor both in a Karr way.” 

Coach Brown also wanted to deliver a message not only to St. Aug but also to young black men in the New Orleans area. 

“The biggest message we can give to St. Augustine and Edna Karr is that our black young men can do it a different way, and we are trying to show these young men a different way of doing it. This is not just a win for Edna Karr, but this is a win for St. Aug too. They should be proud, we should all be proud that we have a field in the Superdome full of black men, and we are making this attractive for them to do something besides run to the street. For anyone out there listening, if you need a home at Karr, at St. Aug, that is the excellence we are talking about. With either one, you can’t go wrong. This is the standard, this is what we are trying to build, not men behind bars but men behind desks, men that own businesses, men that can do it the hard way and the tough way, and not always looking for the easy way. That is why we are tough on these men, because life is tough.”