SULPHUR — St. Louis Catholic’s defense shined again Thursday night at Matt Walker Memorial Stadium as the Saints narrowed down the three-way tie for first in District 3-3A.

The Saints handed Lake Charles College Prep its first district loss, 34-7.

The Saints (6-1, 4-0) share the lead in 3-3A with Iowa (5-2, 4-0), who beat Westlake (3-4, 0-3) 38-0.

St. Louis held the Trailblazers to 180 yards of total offense, recovered a fumble and sacked quarterback Dylen Vital three times.

“We want to play physical football. It is almost like physicality is our gasoline. The more physical it gets, the more we want it.”

The only touchdown for LCCP (3-4, 2-1) came on a trick play with 6:45 left in the first half and the Saints leading 17-0. Wide receiver Elijah Garrick hit a wide-open Kyrian Gaskins, who raced 80 yards to the end zone. Gaskins had five catches for 111 yards.

“We challenged them at halftime. If they don’t score, we don’t lose, and they took that personally. They took that trick play personally. I can’t say enough about that defense. The coaching staff, they just work so hard. They motivate me every day to show up to work.”

The Saints forced the Trailblazers to punt three times in the second half and turn the ball over on downs twice.

Senior linebacker Graham Montet made plays on both sides of the ball like he has done all season long with big hits on defense and a hand in two touchdowns on offense. He scored on a 1-yard run with 5:33 left in the game when made a fourth down stop on defense to set the Saints up on the Trailblazers’ 28-yard line. Two plays later, he lined up at quarterback and made a 20-yard jump pass to Nathan Ughovwa for a 34-7 lead with 2:44 left in the game. Montet ran for 92 yards on 16 carries.

“That kid is special. Make sure we tell the college coaches that. That kid does it all. The best part about it is he does it at practice. He doesn’t want to take a day off. He doesn’t take a day off in the weight room no matter how he is feeling. I told him on the sideline there at the end I said ‘you want to be the man?’ He was tired. He looked drained, and I said ‘You want to be the man?’ and he said ‘I am the man.’ And I said go prove it, and he did that. He doesn’t throw it much, but when we get the opportunity and we think that the defense is keying on him in the run we were able to take advantage of that.”

LCCP forced the Saints to punt four times but couldn’t capitalize on the energy generated by the trick play.

“We are just not playing good football right now. I was just talking to the boys about it. We are not sustaining drives offensively. I thought we played well defensively. We had opportunities and stopped them five or six times tonight defensively, we just couldn’t get anything started offensively.”

“We still have time. We just have to go back to the drawing board and see what we have to do to get the guys motivated up front. They are supposed to be better than that right now. They are going backward, so we have to figure out what is going on with that.”

The Saints scored twice in the first quarter to take a 14-0 lead on a 26-yard run by Kyler Turner and Luke Pierson’s 47-yard pass to Ughovwa. Turner ran for 79 yards on 18 carries.

St. Louis place kicker Landon Daughdril stayed perfect with four extra points (23 for 23 )and a pair of field goals (11 for 11).

St. Louis 34

LCCP 7

SCORE BY QUARTERS

LCCP 0 7 0 0 — 7

St. Louis 14 3 3 14 — 34

SCORING SUMMARY

S: Kyle Turner 26 run (Landon Daughdril kick)

S: Nathan Ughovwa 47 pass from Luke Pierson (Daughdril kick)

S: FG Daughdril 27

L: Kyrian Gaskins 80 pass from Elijah Garrick (kick)

S: FG Daughdril 38

S: Graham Montet 1 run (Daughdril kick)

S: Ughovwa 20 pass from Montet (Daughdirl kick)

INDIVIDUAL LEADERS

RUSHING — Lake Charles College Prep: Dylen Rubin 10-25, Matthew Higginbotham 2-21, Kyrian Gaskins 1-1, Ayden Carter 5-(minus-1), Dylen Vital 5-(minus-28), Elijah Garrick 2-2, Alijah Pete 1-9. St. Louis Catholic: Kyle Turner 18-79, Graham Montet 16-92, Landon Daughdril 1-(minus-17), Luke Pierson 4-34, Luke Mere 2-2.

PASSING — Lake Charles College Prep: Vital 9-17-0—74, Garrick 1-1-0—80. St. Louis Catholic: Pierson 4-9-0—80, Montet 1-2-0—20.

RECEIVING — Gaskins 5-111, Higginbotham 1-21, Carter 2-15, Pete 1-6, Garrick 1-1. St. Louis Catholic: Turner 2-(minus-3), Nathan Ughovwa 2-67, Andrew Svarney 1-36.