Abbeville can’t dig way out of big hole, falls to SMSH

The St. Martinville Tigers took advantage of a couple of short field situations to build a big halftime lead and held off a second-half comeback try by the Abbeville Wildcats to remain unbeaten in District 5-3A action Thursday night at Wildcat Stadium in Abbeville.
The Tigers (5-4 overall, 3-0 district) scored on all four of their first-half possessions to lead 28-7 at the break, then added TDs on their first two second-half possessions to go up 42-7 before Abbeville buckled down and outscored the visiting team 12-0 the rest of the way.
The Wildcats saw another scoring opportunity slip away with a fumble inside the SMSH 15-yard line, and turned the ball over on downs at the St. Martinville 36 and 38 yard lines in the fourth quarter to snuff three potential scoring drives that could’ve pulled Abbeville to within a couple of points had they all been converted into TDs.
“(I’m) one hundred percent proud of our effort right there,” AHS coach Roderick Moy said. “It would’ve been very easy — many high school teams would’ve folded down 28-7, but we showed a lot of grit. We showed the football team I truly believed we are in my heart, and I’m very proud of that. That’s a good football team over there (St. Martinville), I don’t give a damn what their record is. That’s a great football team over there, and we matched them. Unfortunately, they just punched us in the mouth in the first quarter, and we were never able to recover.
SMSH took advantage of a turnover on downs at the Abbeville 35 to get its first touchdown as a fourth-and-one attempt by AHS came up short. St. Martinville tailback Steven Blanco scored the first of his four rushing TDs from seven yards away and the PAT by Alexis Maza made it 7-0.
Quarterback Kaden Zenon added a one-yard TD run and receiver Cullen Charles scored on a three-yard run to make it 21-0. A double pass — from Zenon to Charles, and then from Charles to a wide-open Harvey Broussard, made it 28-0 with 1:01 left in the half. Abbeville protested the TD on the double pass as the first throw was a forward pass, and not a lateral, but the play stood after the officials discussed the play.
Abbeville got on the scoreboard with a three-play scoring drive on the ensuing possession. Quarterback Tahj Judge hit a wide-open Ronale Walker for a 54-yad gain to the SMSH 11, and two snaps later, Jaysen Shelvin made a beautiful one-handed grab in the end zone to pull Abbeville to within 28-7 following the PAT by Edwin Ramirez.
Shelvin led the Wildcats with 66 yards on 11 rushes and had two catches for 16 yards and a TD. Walker led Abbeville with 75 yards on two receptions.
But Blanco, who finished the night with 223 yards on 22 carries, added TD runs of 5 and 81 yards in the second half to push the lead to 42-7. Broussard had four catches for 112 yards on the night for the Tigers.
Abbeville kept fighting after falling behind by 35 points, with Braylon Moore scooping up a rolling kickoff and returning it 90 yards for a touchdown. The PAT was blocked but Abbeville had trimmed its deficit to 42-13.
The Wildcats then forced a three-and-out to set up a six-play, 68-yard scoring drive to pull to within 42-19. Tra’Sean Greene scored on a one-yard carry after Shelvin converted a fourth-and-five play with an 11-yard run to the 1. Greene finished with 40 yards on 11 runs.
The Abbeville defense stifled SMSH from there but couldn’t score on their final three possessions.
“I think if you catch the last three quarters it might be an even ballgame, but that’s what good teams do, they were able to put together 48 minutes, and we only played a good three quarters, and that was the difference in the game,” Moy said.
Both teams struggled with penalties. Abbeville was penalized nine times for 83 yards, while St. Martinville drew a dozen flags for 119 yards in penalties.
AHS plays at Kaplan on Friday to close out the regular season.
“We’ve got to match their effort,” Moy said. “We know they’re going to be hungry. Their season’s on the line. We need to match their effort and play a clean game. You saw it tonight. I bet we had 20 penalties. We’ve got to clean that up because we can’t put that all on officials. We did some things wrong, and we’ve got to be honest with ourselves. Clean up the penalties, and we’ve got to get healthy. We lost some key guys tonight. That will be a big deal.”