Run game powers Bobcats

ERATH — When Erath’s passing game stalled after a hot start, the Bobcats reverted to a power run game to propel them to a 35-20 win over the Vinton Lions on homecoming night at Robert J. Segura Sr. Memorial Stadium.
Behind 120 yards and two touchdowns from Blake Dautreuil, Erath ran for 204 yards, including 119 yards for the team in the second half.
Erath head coach Eric LeBlanc said the effort the Bobcats have been putting into preparation and games this year paid off with a win on Friday.
“I thought the kids played hard,” he said. “The kids played well. The effort and energy was there. It wasn’t pretty, but we found a way to do something we hadn’t done this year, and that’s put a win in the column.”
Mason Hebert (21 yards on five runs) and quarterback Lynkon Romero (17 yards on five rushes) also ran for touchdowns, and Landon Lemaire added 47 yards on only four carries.
“We haven’t been feeling it with the pass the last couple of weeks, so we kind of felt like we needed to go back to our roots and fill it up as a team,” Hebert said.
Romero completed his first six pass attempts, helping the Bobcats jump out to a 15-0 lead in the first quarter. Romero completed two passes on Erath’s second possession, and Dautreuil followed that with runs of nine and 23 yards, the last good for a touchdown, and Payton Pickens kicked the point-after for a 7-0 lead with 7:15 left in the opening period.
After forcing a punt, the Bobcats took over again near midfield. After a penalty, Romero connected with Cameron Soirez for 9 yards and then hit Lemaire for 33 yards to the 14. Romero, who passed for 98 yards, kept the ball on the next play for a 14-yard touchdown run. The Bobcats went for 2 after a penalty before the PAT attempt, and Brayden Landry carried in for a 15-0 lead with 5:40 left in the half.
But the Lions wouldn’t go down without a fight. Receiver Freddie Budwine proved nearly unstoppable on the night, with quarterback Braylon Beard frequently lobbing the ball up in his direction, as often as not resulting in a catch by Budwine, who’d leap up over defenders to make the catch.
Budwine had three receptions on Vinton’s ensuing drive for a total of 57 yards, including a 22-yard TD over a defensive back. The 2-point conversion pass to Budwine made it 15-8.
Budwine finished the night with 10 catches for 206 yards and two TDs, helping the Lions to 291 passing yards despite completing only 14 of 34 pass attempts.
“We struggled early,” LeBlanc said. “They had a great player in No. 3 out there (Budwine). He’s a really athletic kid. You could see him go up there and get it. He went up and got a lot of balls. A couple of our DBs had a chance to make some plays and didn’t, and then sometimes we did. It seemed like whenever our defense would make a play, we’d struggle on offense and then we’d have to turn it back over with a punt. We couldn’t get the ball rolling.”
The Lions pulled to within a point with a six-play scoring drive late in the second quarter. Passes of 28 yards to Landon Harbert and 33 yards to Budwine gave Vinton a first down at Erath’s eight. Three straight keepers by Jerryckson Gonzalez resulted in a touchdown, but Erath’s Torrien Alfred broke up a pass to Budwine on a 2-point try to help the Bobcats maintain their lead at 15-14.
The Bobcats began to pull away in the second half. After a fumble and an exchange of punts to start the third quarter, Erath got going with a 31-yard run by Dautreuil to the Vinton 10-yard line. Hebert carried two straight times from there, getting in on a four-yard run with 7:5 to go for a 22-14 lead following Pickens’ PAT.
“The second half we made some adjustments and kind of put a stop to it on defense, and we moved the ball a lot better on offense the second half,” LeBlanc said. “Even a couple of times when we tried to throw it we weren’t very effective in the second half, but fine, if people are going to start stacking the box on us, we’ll make adjustments for it and go out and do what we do.”
Dautreuil then intercepted Beard on Vinton’s next possession, returning the ball 71 yards to the Lions’ 1-yard line. Hebert scored on the next snap for a 29-14 lead with the Pickens point-after.
Vinton managed to get to within 29-20 on its next possession, thanks passes of 41 and 39 yards to Budwine, the latter for the touchdown. The 2-pointer failed.
A 29-yard run by Lemaire started the Bobcats’ next drive off nicely, and he then ran for 11 yards to set up Dautreuil’s five-yard TD run, with the Bobcats moving the pile into the end zone after Dautreuil was initially hit at the 4-yard line.
Erath turned away Vinton in part thanks to five forced turnovers, including a pair of interceptions by Ashton Alleman and a fumble recovery by Jordan Hamm. The Bobcats also forced four punts and a turnover on downs at the Erath 1, which came after an apparent fumble recovery by the Bobcats was ruled not to be a fumble.
Hebert said that the Bobcats are starting to mesh well, after having several starters miss time the past few weeks.
“You can see a lot of things coming together,” Hebert said. “We turned it on the second half, which was very good. We’re starting to get our run game a little better, which is nice. It’s going to help open up the pass.”
Seven players caught passes for Erath, led by Soirez with two catches for 20 yards and Dautreuil with 12 yards on two catches. Lemaire (33 yards), Alfred (18 yards) and Drake Domangue (10 yards) also had catches of 10 yards or greater.
Hebert, a junior, credits the senior class with inspiring the team to keep working hard.
“It’s really the senior class,” Hebert said. “They’ve worked their butts off for the last four years. My brother (Austin Hebert) was a senior last year, and it’s not really a great way to go out if you’re not going to the playoffs and trying for the state championship. All the team feels like we need to come together as a team, work together and work harder, and give these seniors their last ride out of there.”
“I’ve been saying it about all year,” LeBlanc said. “I wasn’t just blowing smoke about this team. We were 0-4 but were having some of the best practices all year out there. These guys are hungry, and they want to win. We’ve got a good group of seniors who want to lead this team the right way, and you can see it out there in practice. We’ll keep working these guys, and we’ll keep getting after it, and we’re looking forward to getting into district next week.”