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Abbeville running back Blake Saddler gets helped off the field by a Union Parish player late in the game.

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Abbeville’s Tazavian Andrews makes a great catch with Union Parish players on him.

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Rylan Regan turns up field after making a catch for Abbeville. (photo by Michael Odendahl)

Union Parish ends Abbeville's dream season

The Union Parish Farmers showed why they reached the Class 3A state finals last year. They also showed Abbeville fans that they are not just a one-person machine.
In the quarterfinals, the No. 7 seeded Farmers beat No. 2 seeded Abbeville 45-6 on Friday in Wildcat Stadium.
The Farmers will be back to Acadiana on Friday to battle St. Martinville in the semifinals.
In only his second year, Abbeville head coach Roderick Moy was proud of his team for their outstanding 11-2 season.
“This (the loss) doesn’t take away from everything we accomplished,” Moy said. “Nobody gave us a chance at even finishing top two in the district, much less finish in the top two in triple-A in the state. Getting to the quarterfinals and going on the road three and a half hours away and beating an excellent Wossman team.
“I’m extremely proud of this group. You talk about the first time in 20 years that we’ve been right here. This is just the beginning for us. We’re losing 12 seniors, but we’ve got a big group of 18 coming back next year that will be hungry. We’ve tasted it. Now we’ve got to get the next step.”
All week leading up to Friday’s game, the talk was about Union Parish’s runner Trey Holly. Holly, a junior, is a four-star running back recruit and can pick the college he will attend.
Abbeville fans had a hard time seeing what type of running back Holly was because he was not why the Wildcats lost the game.
Heck, at halftime, Holly had only seven carries for 36 yards. But, when the game was over, Holly had 105 yards, including a 48-yard TD run in the third quarter.
Union Parish used their fullback Ja’ quarius Donald. Donald led the team with 19 carries for 139 yards and two scores. He ran right up the middle and gained three and four yards each carry.
When Abbeville put most of their players at the line of scrimmage to try and stop the run, Union Parish quarterback Cole Dison made them pay with a pass.
He threw four passes, and three were for touchdowns.
Union Parish led 24-0 with 4:24 left in the second period.
“We just had to start faster,” Moy said. “The plan was to get the lead, control the clock, keep their offense over there – do exactly what they did to us. Keep that thing and make them get impatient. They did it to us. That was the team that was going to win. We knew that’s the way it was going to go. They imposed their will, and we didn’t get to do what we wanted to do.”
All season the Wildcats’ offense was running the football. However, they had more passing yards than rushing yards in Friday’s game.
AHS tailback Blake Saddler had 2,000 yards rushing this year and had only six carries for 54 yards - a season-low. In the first half, he had two carries for 31 yards.
Moy said when the Wildcats got behind 24-0, Abbeville had to change its offensive plan and go to the air.
“We got behind the 8-ball 24-0, and we had to move fast and throw the ball,” Moy said. “We just got behind what we were going to do and we couldn’t get him (Saddler) going.”
Quarterback Tahj Judge had his best game, completing 15 out of 29 passes for 178 yards. Chad Nolan led AHS with seven receptions for 69 yards and a touchdown.

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