Abbeville too much for Vermilion Catholic

Earlier this season, Abbeville coach Roderick Moy called senior running back Blake Saddler his “home run hitter” and that he needed to find a way to get the ball into his hands more than nine times a game.
Friday night against Vermilion Catholic, Moy managed to get the ball into Saddler’s hands 12 times, and the senior proceeded to hit five home runs - touchdowns of 30-plus yards, in the Wildcats’ 43-0 win over the Eagles.
Saddler had touchdown runs on 38, 44 and 56 yards in the second quarter as the Wildcats took control of the game and finished his night with an 83-yard touchdown run in the third quarter as Abbeville beat Vermilion Catholic for the first time on the football field and improved to 3-0 on the season for the first time since 2005.
“Hats off to them,” VC coach Broc Prejean said after his team fell to 1-2 on the season. “Their offensive line and Blake Saddler had a heckuva game.
“ We knew that he was going to bust some big runs, and he did it repeatedly. It was a great job by them.”
It was a great job on both the offensive and defensive sides as the Wildcats rolled up 43 points. The second time in three weeks, they have hit that total, amassed more than 500 yards of offense. The defense held Vermilion Catholic scoreless and to less than 250 yards of offense and forced five turnovers.
“Everyone in the city knew that we weren’t supposed to beat them,” Moy said. “They were supposed to stop No. 4 (Saddler). So that was the talk all week.
“Let them talk. We practiced. Then, we got ready to play the game. At the end of the day, all that mattered was that we had one more point than them. And at the end of the day, our kids stood up, rose to the challenge, did it the right way, and came out on top.”
And while Abbeville’s win was a team effort, two players stood out for the Wildcats against the Eagles.
Saddler had 324 yards on 13 carries. He averaged 25 yards a carry to go along with his 5 TDs.
AHS had 459 rushing yards and VC had 183.
On defense, Abbeville’s Naylen St. Julien had 12 tackles and a forced fumble on defense.
“It feels good because I always knew that we could do it,” St. Julien said. “It was just a matter of time. The football class of 2021 can say that we did this.
“We’re trusted our coaches, we’re doing our job, and we’re not letting off.”
It was a dominating effort for the Wildcats.
After a scoreless first quarter in which both teams had drives that stalled out deep in the opponent’s territory, it was Saddler who struck the first blow for Abbeville with his 38-yard touchdown run in the second quarter to give AHS a 6-0 lead. He followed that with his 44-yard run to put Abbeville up 12-0.
“They were coming through the holes and blitzing, and it took us until the second quarter to get things going,” Saddler said. “I don’t remember the first one. The only one I remember is that second one when I broke a tackle and ran. That was the touchdown I liked.”
In the second quarter, Saddler added a 56-yard run to give the Wildcats a 24-0 lead at the break.
“This was a personal game,” Saddler said. “We’ve been waiting for this game all week long. We’ve been waiting on this day to come.”
In addition to Saddler, Tresean Green had a 40-yard touchdown run in the first half, and in the second half, quarterback Jaysen Shelvin had a 54 yard run for a score and Saddler finished off the offensive fireworks with his 83 yard run for a touchdown.
All the while, the Abbeville defense clamped down on Vermilion Catholic’s offense.
“I thought we had some good drives, and we had a pretty good drive going until that first fumble,” Prejean said. “We are making inopportune mistakes that are taking our offense off the field.”
The Eagles made five of them Friday night. There were three fumbles and two interceptions by Chad Nolan, including one returned for a touchdown for the final Abbeville score of the night.
“All we can do is keep grinding,” Prejean said. “We’ll fix our mistakes in film study and on the practice field, and we are going to go from there.”
Jonathan Dartez rushed for 77 yards, Seth Noegel added 60 yards on the ground, and Travin Moore finished with 44 yards rushing. Dartez finished the night 6-of-18 passing for 49 yards and the two picks.
“This was a big win,” Moy said. “We go out every night, live with the plan and stick with it. We stayed together tonight. We stayed together as 60 brothers, and they weren’t going to beat us.”
“We did what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it.”
Now Abbeville goes for 4-0 this week against Northside.
“We know that the next game is not going to have the emotion of this game,” Sadler said. “We have to do our job this week in practice, and we have to do it better so that we can get a win next week. All that matters is next week.”