Iowa and Lake Charles College Prep are a week from a potential winner-take-all matchup for the District 4-3A title, but each must clear a difficult hurdle this week.
The Yellow Jackets (7-0, 2-0) will play at Westlake (6-1, 1-1) Friday while the Trailblazers (4-3, 2-0) will host Jennings (2-5, 1-1) Thursday night.
The Rams lost at home to LCCP two weeks ago, but bounced back with a 56-7 win at South Beauregard last week. Iowa continued its dominant season with a 59-16 win at Jennings.
Richardson said Iowa doesn’t have many weaknesses to exploit.
“They are a good all-around team,” he said. “They have a lot of team speed. Curtis Deville stands out, obviously, but they have some other good weapons at running back, quarterback and receiver.
“They have been real steady defensively. They have beaten everyone by 20 points at least and scored at least 42 on everyone.
“We are going to have to try to maintain ball control. We did a pretty good job of that against College Prep, we just didn’t finish drives. We got inside the 10 three times and didn’t score. We are going to have to score and take away the big plays from these guys. They are explosive so we are going to have to try to make them earn their way down the field.”
Richardson said the Rams will have to use the Prep loss as a learning experience.
“We played hard the entire game,” he said. “We played tough. We ended up getting blown out at the end and we learned that we have to make fewer mistakes, have fewer penalties and finish drives.”
LCCP vs. Jennings
Tomorrow night the Blazers will host a dangerous Jennings team. Bulldogs quarterback Trevor Etienne ran for 250 yards last week, including a 98-yard touchdown run. The week before, the Bulldogs had three rushers go over 100 yards in a win over St. Louis.
Etienne has run for 1,240 yards and scored 18 touchdowns.
Prep used the tandem of Devonte Guidroz and JaRell Joseph, who combined for 249 yards and three touchdowns, in a win over St. Louis last week.
The Blazers defense added a score on an interception return by Eric Beloney, who leads the area with three defensive touchdowns, all on interception returns of at least 80 yards.