SULPHUR — Seniors Peyton Lemaire and Gage Trahan helped lead Sulphur to a dominating 42-8 win over Washington-Marion at Matt Walker Memorial Stadium to open the 2022 season Thursday night.

“I thought we did a lot of good things at times,” Sulphur head coach Chris Towery said. “The defense played well.

“The offense moved the ball up and down the field. I told the kids before the game all we were doing tonight was working on us. It didn’t have anything to do with an opponent, and that is not to take anything away from any opponent we are playing. It is where we are at with our program right now. We are working on ourselves, and we still have things to fix.”

Trahan threw two touchdown passes and ran for another as he completed 9 of 17 passes for 134 yards and ran for 32 on 11 carries.

Sulphur’s defense allowed one first down through the first three quarters and held the Charging Indians to 116 total yards. From his linebacker position, Lemaire led the charge as he constantly disrupted W-M’s offense. Lemaire had 1 1/2 sacks in the first half along with two quarterback hurries and tipped a pass at the line of scrimmage in the first quarter.

“He (Lemaire) is a good football player,” Towery said. “He is big and long, and that is why he has an offer from McNeese.

“He is that kind of player. I thought we played well all together on that side of the ball. They had a hell of a night.”

Trahan struggled some in the Tors’ first series but settled in to throw a pair of touchdown passes in the second quarter. He hit Jonathan Hopkins Jr. for a 7-yard score to open the second quarter, then connected with tight end Austin Babaz for an 18-yarder with 45 seconds left in the first half.

Trahan added a 1-yard keeper with 7:01 left in the third quarter to put the Tors up 28-0.

“Washington-Marion played to take our RPO game away from us, so we didn’t throw a lot of RPOs tonight,” Towery said. “We threw the ball well at times in our drop-back passing game, and at times we didn’t. I still have to get some of that stuff ironed out. I thought we ran the ball well at times… I thought we made a lot of plays when we need to make plays. The flow of the offense was good.”

Running back Garrison Burgess had the Tors’ first score of the game, a 2-yard run that capped a 10-play, 57-yard drive.

One thing the Tors had trouble with was penalties with 8 for 90 yards, including three 15-yard personal foul penalties.

“We got some penalties in some crucial situations,” Towery said. “We shot ourselves in the foot and got behind the chains and ended up not converting.

“I think we very easily could have been up 35-0 at the half had we not had those situations where we got behind the sticks.”

Washington-Marion scored its lone touchdown with 9:31 left in the game on a 53-yard catch and run from Landon Braxton to DeKhoury Flagg.

Running back Joshua Smith led W-M with 68 yards on 13 carries. Braxton completed 8 of 13 passes for 62 yards, and Flagg had two catches for 56 yards.

Kaden Blalock caught four passes for 68 yards for the Tors.