Abbeville crushes West St. Mary, 41-0

BALDWIN - Abbeville senior inside linebacker Zaylun Williams admitted that he and the rest of the Wildcats were looking ahead to next week in preparing for Thursday night’s road trip to winless West St. Mary.
But in the end, it didn’t matter as Abbeville’s defense pitched a shutout, and the offense came around in the second half as the Wildcats won their fourth straight game of the season in a 41-0 rout of the Wolfpack as the team looks towards Friday’s road game at St. Charles Catholic.
“I’m not going to talk down about an opponent, but we weren’t worried about this team; we were looking forward to next week,” Williams said after the win in which the defense recorded six sacks, three interceptions, including a pick 6 for a touchdown and held WSM to negative yards rushing in the contest.
“We were looking ahead, but it didn’t hurt us tonight.”
While the offense struggled in the first half and only led 12-0 at the break, the defense completely shut down West St. Mary (0-5), giving the offense time to get going and start producing yards and points.
“That was just us executing the plan we had all week,” Williams said. “That was us being coached well, executing the coach’s plan for the game, and not letting them have any positive yards.
“They may have had some positive yards here and there, but when it came time to lock down, we locked down.”
Justin Montgomery had a 3-yard TD run for the game’s first score.
The second touchdown went in the air. Quarterback Tahj Judge connected with Artis Latson for a 30-yard touchdown. It was 12-0 at halftime.
The Wolfpack had more negative plays than positive ones in the game.
West St. Mary finished with negative five yards rushing and at one time was negative 30 yards rushing. WSM quarterback Tyshon Jackson was sacked six times, including, appropriately enough, the game’s last play. He was picked off three times, including a 38-yard interception return for a score in the fourth quarter from sophomore Deylon Joseph.
“Our defense held us in while we figured some things out offensively,” Abbeville (4-1) coach Roderick Moy said. “We weren’t very sound on offense, but the defense held it together until we got over the hump in the second half.
“I’m very proud of the effort defensively.”
Moy was very complimentary of Williams’ performance.
“He was our only healthy inside linebacker. We had to make up some things and do some differently,” the AHS coach said. “We lost two kids in the past two days, and Williams was the senior leader we needed him to be tonight.”
The defense needed to be stout because the Wildcats struggled on offense in the first half.
Only two drives ended in touchdowns as Montgomery scored on a three-yard run in the first quarter, and Judge threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to Artis Latson in the second quarter.
But Moy didn’t hit the panic button.
“At the end of the day, we stayed true to who we are,” Moy said. “We didn’t make anything up. We hit a couple of passes at the end of the second and third quarters, and in the fourth quarter, we could play power football and still hung 41 on them.”
Abbeville scored 23 points in the second half against WSM, including a nice bit of trickeration with a double-pass that ended up in the hands of Brian Gordon to complete the 30-yard pass play for the score.
Now, the Wildcats turn their attention to St. Charles, the reigning Select Division III state champions.
“Hopefully, we are going to play the ball style next week where no one scores 41 points,” Moy said.” It’s going to be a clash of two excellent football teams in the state of Louisiana.
“Our goal is to put the state on notice that we are here and we are going to be here for a long time in November and into December.”
Abbeville finished with 240 yards rushing and 79 passing yards for a total of 319 yards.
Montgomery had 13 carries for 79 yards rushing, while Tazavian Andrews also had 13 carries for 80 yards.
Edmar Simon III had nine carries for 45 yards.
The Wildcats used two quarterbacks. DaZavien Maze completed 2 for 4 passes for 49 yards and a touchdown. Judge completed one out of two passes for 30 yards and a touchdown.
With receptions for Abbeville were Artis Latson (2 catches for 41 yards and a TD) and Brian Gordon (1 catch for 38 yards and a TD).