Iowa held off an energized Lake Charles College Prep team in the second half on Friday at Cougar Stadium to win 36-22 and set up a huge battle for the District 3-3A championship next week.

“I am not surprised at all,” Iowa head coach Tommy Johns said. “Those guys (Lake Charles College Prep) played four quarters like we thought they would.

“It is always a great game. Hats off to those guys. They made some plays too. We were fortunate to make a few more plays at the end.”

Iowa (6-2, 5-0) will host will host St. Louis Catholic (7-1, 5-0) on Friday, Oct. 27, for the District 3-3A championship. St. Louis beat South Lafourche 21-14 in a nondistrict game Friday.

“That was what we were hoping to position ourselves to do — to compete for a district championship,” Johns said. “I am super proud of these kids for coming this far over the last five or six weeks. I think that we are a completely different team than we were in Weeks 1 and 2. I think we learned a lot of lessons early on this year. I think we have taken those lessons and applied them and play a lot better.”

Iowa got a big defensive play with six minutes left in the game as their momentum waned. LCCP (3-5, 2-2) had just stopped the Yellow Jackets for the third time in the second half. But on the Trailblazers’ first play of the drive, senior Christian Landry popped the ball loose, and sophomore C.J. Bellow recovered it at the LCCP 27-yard line. Two plays later, Cole Corbello raced to the end zone for a 21-yard touchdown and then threw a two-point conversion to Cohen Charles for a 36-22 lead.

“That was a huge play. Christian Landry made a great play to pop the ball out, and C.J. Bellow recovered it. And we were able to punch it in right after that with Cole (Corbello). I am super proud of those guys. Everybody took their turn making plays when we needed them. We knew it was going to be a battle.”

Corbello and quarterback Josiah Bushnell played huge roles in the Yellow Jackets’ fifth consecutive win. Corbello (12 car., 78 yards/2 rec., 37 yards) had two rushing touchdowns, one passing and receiving, plus threw a two-point conversion. Bushnell ran for 135 yards on 13 carries, including a 77-yard touchdown, and completed 10 of 16 passes for 122 yards and a touchdown.

After falling behind 14-0 in the first quarter, LCCP cut the deficit to one possession twice in the second half. They force Iowa to punt in their first third-quarter possession. The Trailblazers started near midfield with a 35-yard pass from Elijah Garrick to Allen Botley on a reverse and Dylen Rubin capped the drive with a 1-yard run to narrow the Iowa lead to 21-16.

“I am proud of my team,” LCCP head coach Erick Franklin said. “We have a freshman quarterback.

“When Josiah left, we knew there were going to be some growing pains, but I thought we played well on defense. We stopped them plenty of times tonight and had opportunities. We just didn’t capitalize late in the second half.”

Freshman quarterback Dylen Vital hit Garrick for a 35-yard score with 8:40 left in the game to cut Iowa’s advantage to 28-22. Vital completed 12 of 20 passes for 154 yards. Garrick had seven catches for 119 yards.