Erath falls to St. Martinville, 43-14

ST. MARTINVILLE — The increasingly younger Erath Bobcats fell behind quickly and couldn't overcome a big halftime deficit in a 43-14 loss to St. Martinville to open District 5-3A action on Friday.The Bobcats, who were already missing several starters at a variety of spots on both sides of the ball due to injuries, lost starting quarterback Lynkon Romero to an injured shoulder as he was tackled along the sideline in the first quarter of Friday's game.
The Tigers, who led 14-0 at that point, added a safety on backup QB Jack Landry's first snap, then three more touchdowns in the second quarter for a 36-0 lead at halftime."We missed a couple of plays early and they exposed us on it," Erath head coach Eric LeBlanc said.After recovering a fumble on Erath's first play of the second half, St. Martinville tacked on another touchdown to go up 43-0 with 10:18 to go in the period.
That triggered an automatic running clock, and though Erath scored twice in the remaining time, the Bobcats didn't have enough clock to pull off the comeback.
"I'm not making any excuses," LeBlanc said of his squad's battle with injuries. "We work the guys that we've got. They're working their butts off. We  had another sophomore step up today into right tackle and I thought he did a great job."Quarterback got hurt in the first quarter, and we had another sophomore step in and did a great job. I'm not complaining about the guys that are on the field right now. They're working hard and they're putting the time in."
Romero completed his only pass attempt for an eight-yard gain to Drake Domangue before leaving with the injury as three defenders landed on him while tackling him at the sideline.
Landry led the Bobcats with 10 yards on five carries and threw a 16-yard strike to Bo Lancon on a slant pass for a touchdown with about 4:15 left in the game.Mason Hebert scored the first points for Erath on a two-yard carry two plays into the fourth quarter.LeBlanc said Landry made good decisions, drawing three pass interference penalties on the Tigers.
"He gets a ton of reps in practice," the coach said. "He and Lynkon split them. That's why we do it with the O-line, with the receivers and everybody, if somebody goes down, we've got to get another guy ready to go. Coming in he was cold. I thought he made some good decisions. At times it sped up. The protection broke down at times. We've got to get ready for next week." The Bobcats got their first first down of the game on a pass interference penalty in the third quarter, keeping the scoring drive going.Though Erath fell to 1-5 overall and 0-1 in district, LeBlanc said the players conintue to play hard until the end of each game.."We are," LeBlanc said. "For our crowd, we talk about it all the time. They're playing for more than themselves. They played all the way to the end, so I'm proud of those guys."
Senior running back Steven Blanco rushed for 155 yards and four touchdowns on 17 carries for the Tigers, and senior quarterback Kaden Zenon ran for 76 yards on seven rushes and threw for 147 yards, including a 35-yard touchdown to Cullen Charles, who had five receptions for 77 yards and the TD. Kervin Fontenette added 51 yards on two catches.
"We've just got to battle back," LeBlanc said. "We've got Kaplan next week coming home."