Long time coming: Shutout victory keeps Sacred Heart undefeated, brimming with confidence
by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
With his heart pounding in a tense scoreless matchup, Sacred Heart of Ville Platte coach Jacob Aguillard looked at his sophomore placekicker, William Chapman, and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
The Trojans were locked in a 0-0 contest late Friday in the first District 5-1A contest with No. 2 Opelousas Catholic and driving, advancing the ball to the Vikings’ 2-yard line on a completion from Ellis Fusilier to Jax Fontenot.
That’s when the idea of kicking a go-ahead field goal became a reality in Aguillard’s mind, a scenario that played out when the Trojans stalled and Chapman came on for a 19-yard field goal with 11:42 left in the game.
“He was a heck of a lot more relaxed than I was,” Aguillard said. “He’s standing by me. Prior to the kick, I told him we were not going to put the ball in the air. We wanted six, but ultimately, we’re good with taking three. I kind of looked over at him on the sideline, and he was ready, just like he looks at practice.
“Whenever I said field goal,” Aguillard said, “he sprinted out onto the field, puts his tee down, gets his steps in, and drilled it straight through the uprights. I don’t think he realized the magnitude of the kick. I’m glad he was a lot more relaxed than I was.”
Chapman lifted Sacred Heart to a 3-0 lead with the majority of the fourth quarter still to play.
Sacred Heart, which committed four turnovers, was able to withstand Opelousas Catholic over the course of the final quarter. The Trojans forced their second turnover of the game in the latter stages of the game when Fontenot stripped wide receiver Carter Stelly of the ball, enabling safety Thomas Deshotel to recover it.
Sacred Heart had to give the ball back to OC after a punt on its final possession, but the Trojans sealed the shutout win on the final play for a significant league win over the state’s second-ranked team in Class 1A.
“Our kids work really hard,” Aguillard said. “I know we won the game, but we had some guys that were in and out of the ball game with injuries. They wanted to go back into the game and finish the game for their team. That was the bigger picture of how we won that game, just the willingness to compete through the fourth quarter.”
Sacred Heart (4-0) found itself in an identical situation last season with an opportunity to remain undefeated. Instead, the Vikings administered a 42-0 victory, maintaining a stranglehold of 14 consecutive wins over the Trojans until Friday.
“It’s been a long time,” said Aguillard, a graduate of Sacred Heart who was on the last team in 2010 to defeat OC, 10-7, on a go-ahead field goal in the final two minutes of play. “It was a hard-fought game.”
The third shutout of the season for Sacred Heart came against an Opelousas Catholic team averaging 35 points with a top-flight senior quarterback in Kross Gillen and senior wide receiver Roderick Tezeno, a USC commitment.
The Trojans are tasked Friday with traveling to Westminster (4-0) in Opelousas to continue play in a difficult district with undefeated St. Edmund (4-0) and Catholic-Pointe Coupee (3-1).
There could also be a rematch with Opelousas Catholic (3-1) in the state playoffs.
“I don’t want to take away from our kids, but it wasn’t necessarily on the radar,” Aguillard said of the shutout. “They have an offense which is extremely explosive. Coach (Cullen) Matherne knows how to use his guys and puts them in good spots to be successful. Tezeno is an elite talent; he’s that good. (Wide receiver) Maurice Marcel is a really good player.
“The big thing I’m pushing is that you beat OC last week, don’t let OC beat you this week,” Aguillard said. “You have to get over that win and prepare for Westminster.”
Sacred Heart was a 6-5 team a year ago, eliminated in the first round of the Division IV select playoffs, with heavy losses to its senior class with 14 departures, including four of five starters on the offensive line.
The Trojans had a younger look this season, with only seven seniors with one of those on the offensive line.
“Athletically, we returned about half of our skill kids from last year,” Aguillard said. “We’re a pretty heavy junior-sophomore team, so those young kids are stepping up and answering the call. I’m proud of them, and they put in so much work in the offseason to get themselves physically ready.
“We talked about getting physically ready and emotionally ready,” Aguillard said. “You have to handle a four-quarter game, and you have to be mentally ready to go through the four quarters and the full season. Through Week 4, these kids have answered the call. They understand it’s a long season and we have a tough opponent Friday.”
While experience may not be a prevailing strength on this year’s team, Sacred Heart seems to thrive on such intangibles as passion for the game and love for each other.
The Trojans went unscored upon through the first two weeks of the season in wins over Class 2A Oakdale (32-0) and Class 3A Pine Prairie (42-0) before improving to 3-0 a week later with a 38-15 victory over Basile.
“This group we have loves football,” Aguillard said. “They compete and they’re a gritty group. They care about one another. There’s so much more to a team than going out and getting a position on the field. You have to care about one another. You have to play for the dude next to you, and this group certainly does that.
“These seniors, starting down to the sophomores that are starting, they’re having fun,” Aguillard said. “They’re high-fiving, hanging out. You see the togetherness of the team. Our relationship as a coaching staff we’re like a family, and that kind of trickles down to the team. It’s all one brotherhood here, and we’re having fun with it.”
Aguillard also serves as the team’s defensive coordinator, putting together a scouting report that called for pressuring Gillen with attention to detail on OC’s running back Royce Butler and the Vikings’ game-breaking threats in Tezeno and Marcel.
“When I met with the kids after breaking them down, we knew the challenge we had ahead of us,” Aguillard said. “If you allow Kross to sit back in the pocket, he’s a smart kid that makes the right reads. He makes good throws. He would probably beat us with his arm. For us, it was about trying to get our guys in the right places to be successful on the back end.
“At the time, you had to worry about the running game with Royce Butler and also find ways to put pressure on Kross and get him moving and uncomfortable, and ultimately that’s what we did. He’s a really good football player, and it could not have been one of his best games on Friday, but they’re a really good team. The credit goes to our kids for believing in the game plan and sticking to it and playing through the fourth quarter with it.”
Ellis Chapman’s interception in the end zone halted a drive for the Trojans that had reached their own 16-yard line on OC’s first offensive series.
The Vikings neared the Trojans’ red zone on their first possession in the third quarter when a penalty knocked them back. They also reached the 29 with three minutes to play until Deshotel’s fumble recovery.
“Throughout the course of the game, I found they got better as the game went on,” Aguillard said. “The longer we kept a zero on the board, the more energy, the more fired up they got.”
Walking into the locker room of a scoreless game at halftime was somewhat surreal, Aguillard said.
“When I looked at the scoreboard, I wondered if we could sustain it,” he said. “I wasn’t speechless, but if you would have told me this was going to be the final score, I would have called you crazy. Our kids made plays. I’m proud of them. It was something to see. They’re excited about it and gives them some confidence, and that can go a long way in football.”
OC wound up with 241 total yards with Gillen completing 14 of 32 passes for 155 yards and an interception, and Tezeno led the way with seven catches for 87 yards. Butler topped the Vikings with 87 yards rushing on seven attempts.
“They’re a really good football team,” Aguillard said. “They’ve been a really good program for a long time. At the end of the day, they have a good head coach, they have a really good staff, and athletes. They’re good all around.”
OC’s defense was nearly Sacred Heart’s equal, forcing four turnovers and allowing 304 total yards.
Fusilier accounted for 177 of his team’s final total, completing 11 of 20 passes for 126 yards and rushing 16 times for 51 yards.
“I thought offensively we did enough,” Aguillard said. “It was an old-school football game. Don’t take anything away from OC, they’re really good defensively. They flew around to the football, forced some turnovers. They played a heck of a football game, too.
“We kept moving the sticks when we needed to,” Aguillard said. “Ellis was poised at quarterback. Nobody tried to do too much. They didn’t give up anything vertically. We had to keep the chains moving with the running game, and then we went to our quick game and had some success.”
Sacred Heart was primed to take a 7-0 lead in the second quarter when running back Gavin Patin was stripped and lost the ball going in on the 1-yard line. He responded, though, with a game-high 127 yards on 23 carries.
“He was awesome, he’s such a competitor,” Aguillard said. “He didn’t flinch at all after the fumble. Against Basile last week, he had two early fumbles and finished that game with 17 carries for 177 yards. He protected the ball for the rest of the (OC) game. He’s a strong, quick kid who’s smart and makes good decisions. He did that for the rest of the game, and that’s ultimately what kept us in the game and pushing through. It was a team effort.”
The Trojans also lost a fumble at their own 15-yard line and turned away the Vikings when Ellis Chapman broke up a fourth down pass for Tezeno in the end zone midway through the second quarter.
“Our backs were against the wall a couple times,” Aguillard said. “There were chances they could have taken the lead.”
Returning senior middle linebacker Ashton Duos, one of the team’s captains, was the defensive leader and registered a team-high 14 tackles and a stop behind the line of scrimmage. Seth Guillory had seven tackles and a sack, while Ellis Chapman added 7 tackles and two passes broken up – including one in the end zone.
“I knew we would be able to move the football,” Aguillard said. “I also knew they weren’t going to give up any big plays. It was that type of grind-it-out game. I told the kids at halftime, This is not going to be a high-scoring game. It was 0-0. I told them that I didn’t think anyone was going to light up the scoreboard. You could see the way the game was being played. Our kids were communicating, flying, and moving around.”
Aguillard said the team’s field goal drive was its best of the game – a 10-play march that took over four minutes off the clock – with Fusilier’s scramble out of the pocket and completion to Fontenot to the 2-yard line serving as the highlight of the possession.
When the Trojans couldn’t quite reach the end zone, they called on the talented right foot of William Chapman to provide the difference in the game.
“Watching the game on film after it’s played, we won the game and that was great,” Aguillard said. “But it was how we won it. There were times when we had our backs against the wall, where we could have easily folded, and the kids didn’t. They responded time after time, and as a coach, that’s all you can ask for.
“We knew what we had in William Chapman,” Aguillard said. “We were pretty confident he would be able to make it a chip shot. We just wanted to give him an opportunity. That shows you the growth of our team. It was like they grew up right in front of our eyes Friday, and I’m just thankful to coach them. I’m proud of all of them. It was very fun to watch.”