Kaplan set for tough challenge from Rayne

KAPLAN — The unbeaten Kaplan High Pirates face their toughest challenge to date on Friday when they take on the Rayne Wolves at Ed Douglas Memorial Stadium in their third straight home game.
The Pirates beat District 3-4A’s LaGrange this past week, 48-12, to improve to 3-0 on the season. Kaplan got off to a quick 20-0 start against the Gators, an emphasis for the team before the game.
“Defensively, our biggest challenge has been stopping people early,” Kaplan head coach Cory Brodie said. “Most of the points scored have been in early quarters, and we haven’t had much success coming out of the gate. But we got a big three-and-out to start the game. They were in about fourth and 20. We got the ball and came down and scored in two plays, so it was good to see that the kids took on the challenge to come out and score fast.
“When you can jump out to that type of lead, you’re usually going to be successful.”
Brodie said the key for Kaplan defensively was not being back on their heels and instead playing aggressively.
“We looked like we played a little faster defensively this week than in previous weeks,” he said.
Safety Coy Terro stood out for the Pirates, making nine total tackles, including seven solo stops, with one interception, a pair of pass break ups and one forced fumble, earning Gulf Coast Bank Defensive Player of the Week honors.
On offense, Brodie said, the Pirates spread the ball around nicely.
“I think it’s the first time since I’ve been here where a running back hasn’t had a hundred yards in a game,” Brodie said. “We scored seven touchdowns, and six guys scored a touchdown. that was huge on offense. Bradyn Bearb had two and five other guys had a touchdown.
“Throwing the ball we averaged about 43 yards a catch. Hitting some big plays when they had to come up and stop the run was a huge positive.”
Daylon Landry, Wyatt Hebert, Sabe David and Dane Frick also had running TDs and tight end Carter Petry had a 53-yard TD catch from David.
The defensive line and outside linebackers also played well, the coach said.
“I think we had 12 to 14 tackles for losses last week,” he said.
Rayne presents a new challenge with its speed to the outside.
“First of all, we’ve got to keep everything within the tackles (defensively),” Brodie said. “Most of Rayne’s big plays are outside the tackle — speed sweeps, and stuff like that. A team that scored 57 points against a very well-coached Church Point team, we’ve just got to stay level headed and not let one touchdown turn into three before we know what happened. Rayne came out and scored 22 points in 2 1/2 minutes last week. Besides that it was pretty well-balanced. They’re super explosive. We’re definitely not winning a track meet against them. We’ve got to be sure we cut everything back inside and let our linebackers make a play.”
Four of the five touchdowns Kaplan gave up the first two weeks were on big plays, with only one sustained drive for a TD. That was one thing the Pirates worked to stop last week.
“I think we had 32 plays (on defense) to their 56 plays, mostly because we were eliminating the big play and we’d score pretty quick on offense,” Brodie said. “We can be a pretty good team on offense if we make them drive the ball and not give up those 40 or 50 yard touchdowns.
“I coudn’t count on two hands the amount of times they’ve scored from outside the red zone,” Brodie said of the number of big play TDs the Rayne Wolves have made this year. It’ll be a good test for us.”
He expects a big crowd this week with two teams that have the potential to reach the second round or quarterfinals of the playoffs in their respective divisions.
“We’re going to really get a good look at where we’re at,” Brodie said. “I think this will be the best team so far that we’ve played in the four weeks. I expect it to be an exciting night in Kaplan again.”