Damian Juneau

WELSH — The Welsh defense played hard all night and scored two touchdowns in leading the Greyhounds to a 35-7 District 4-2A win over the Lake Arthur Tigers Friday night.

Welsh scored first on Grant Daigle’s 1-yard for a 7-0 lead with 8:33 to play in the first quarter.

The Tigers tied the score on the ensuing possession on Tyler Breaux’s 10-yard run with 1:20 to play in the second quarter.

With 50 seconds to play in the half, Lake Arthur’s Ethan O’Neillon intercepted a pass to kill a Welsh drive. But the Greyhounds (1-4, 1-1) got the ball back two plays later when Jaheim Simon scored on the fumble recovery in the end zone with 27 seconds to play before the break.

The Greyhounds used a methodical drive capped by a 1-yard Daigle touchdown run with 6:21 to play in the third quarter to extend the lead to 21-7.

“I told the kids at halftime that we needed to score on the opening possession and get a stop and we will be fine, and that’s exactly what we did,” said Welsh head coach Cody Gueringer. “Hats off to Lake Arthur. They hadn’t practiced in 14 days and I knew it was going to be a fight in the beginning of the game.”

Lake Arthur tried to get back in the game in the fourth quarter, but an interception by Ethan Theriot killed a drive and gave Welsh the ball on the Tigers’ 20-yard line.

Two plays later Cale Navarre scored on a 15-yard run to put the Greyhounds up 28-7.

The next possession saw Gabe Gillett get a fumble recovery and return it 20 yards for the game’s final score with 8:35 to play.

“That was big momentum-wise with the back-to-back touchdowns and our kids haven’t seen and felt that this year,” Gueringer said.

Welsh finished with 175 rushing yards. Navarre led Welsh in rushing with 95 yards on 13 carries.

Lake Arthur finished with 96 yards rushing. Breaux led the attack with 49 yards rushing on 13 carries.

“They flew to the football and made some plays defensively,”  Lake Arthur head coach Tarius Davis said of the Greyhounds. “I told our kids that we can tell we hadn’t done a lot of work in two weeks. It showed up late in the game but not early.”The Greyhounds’ Cohen Fontenot is brought down by a Lake Arthur defender during a District 6-2A game Friday night at Welsh High School.

Rick Hickman