Welsh (5-2, 1-0) hosts Kinder Thursday night in a big District 6-2A clash. The Greyhounds have faced two Jefferson Davis Parish rivals, Jennings and Lake Arthur, on the road over the past two weeks, winning both games. The reward for those wins are back-to-back district games with Kinder (4-3, 1-1) and Notre Dame (7-0), 1-0), which have combined to make five state championship game appearances since 2012.
"The gauntlet continues," Welsh head coach John Richardson said. "We told the kids that we can’t have a letdown. We just played two parish rivalries and now we have to turn around and play what we consider our biggest rival."
The Greyhounds have won five consecutive games, including a 55-20 win at Lake Arthur last week in which they ran for 326 yards and seven touchdowns. Jaheim Simon, Jerome Hebert and Alec Iguess each scored a pair of touchdowns with Simon (109) and Austyn Benoit (116) each running for more than 100 yards.
The Greyhounds have found their groove offensively, leaning more on the running game. During the five-game win streak, the Greyhounds have run for 1,776 yards and had nine games of 100 yards or more by an individual player.
Richardson said the production starts up front.
"The offensive line has been our strength," he said. "They came up big when we’ve struggled in other areas."
Kinder rebounded from a district-opening loss to Notre Dame with a 20-8 win over Ville Platte last week. Ty Fuselier ran for 150 yards, his fourth consecutive game reaching triple digits in yardage. In that span he has 527 yards and six touchdowns. Quarterback Hayes Fawcett threw for a season-high 188 yards and a touchdown.
Of the last seven games in the series, four have been decided by six points or fewer. Welsh swept two games last year, winning by one in the regular season and by 30 in the playoffs. Welsh has won three straight after Kinder had won four straight from 2013-15.
Richardson said he expects another close one.
"They have a younger team, but they play with the same attitude as the previous team and are well coached," he said. "This will be our eighth game with them in my six years here, and most of them have been close."
District 4-1A
Basile (5-2, 3-1) travels to Oberlin (6-1, 3-1). Both teams are a game behind district leader St. Edmund (6-1, 4-0), which has beaten both. The Blue Jays are at Grand Lake (1-6, 0-4) this week.