Erath comes from behind to win

ERATH — With the game and their season on the line Friday night in the first round of the Division II non-select football playoffs, the Erath Bobcats established their will on both offense and defense to pull out a 34-30 come-from-behind win over the Eunice Bobcats.
“We were down 30-20 in the third quarter, and the kids were able to battle back,” Erath head coach Eric LeBlanc said. “We scored a couple of touchdowns and held them out of the end zone. I thought the kids played great. They fought their butts off and represented the blue and white well.”
The playoff win was the first for Erath in six years. The Bobcats opened the playoffs at home in 2021, but fell to Wossman 34-29. No. 15 seed Erath (8-3) will travel to No. 2 West Feliciana (10-0) in the second round this week.
“We’re ecstatic,” Erath receiver and defensive back Christian Pillette said. “It’s a big moment. We’re going to the second round. We’ll keep pushing, play it game by game, and keep going.”
Erath running back Blake Dautreuil noted that the last time Erath won its playoff opener, 2016, the Bobcats played Eunice and West Feliciana in the first two rounds.
“Six years ago, we beat Eunice over there and West Feliciana came over here, so it’s just the opposite,” Dautreuil said. “It’s good to make some history. We just wanted to play ball and to win.”
Erath gave up huge chunks of yardage through the first three quarters, allowing pass completions of 54, 42, 43 and 69 yards, plus a 48-yard run from scrimmage, on Eunice’s first eight possessions, helping the visitors from St. Landry Parish build a 30-20 lead with 3:38 left in the third period.
But Erath scored on its next two possessions to surge ahead 34-30, and didn’t allow Eunice to score again, limiting the visiting team to a long play of 12 yards in the last 15 1/2 minutes. Erath also held Eunice to 6-for-17 passing for 48 yards in that span.
The EHS defense allowed 222 passing yards on Eunice’s first seven possessions but limited Eunice 69 total yards over the final three possessions.
LeBlanc said a defensive switch following an injury to cornerback Bo Lancon in the first half helped the Erath defense turn the corner. Eunice receiver Tylon Cooper racked up 221 yards and two touchdowns on 10 catches, including three receptions of greater than 40 yards. Still, he was shut down for the most part once Erath elected to put Pillette in single coverage defending against Cooper.
Eunice quarterback Josh Brown threw for 270 yards and two touchdowns but was only 6-for-17 for 48 yards on his team’s final two possessions to finish the night 13-for-30.
“One of our starting corners, the guy who was playing man (to man defense) on No. 11 (Cooper), went down (with an injury) in the first quarter,” LeBlanc said. “We tried to get our other corner in there, and he made some excellent plays. But we put our athletes on their best athlete and let them have at it. It was a great adjustment by the coaches and a good job by those kids adjusting, too.
“Once we took away the deep ball from them, they were trying to find the short stuff, and their running game was kind of stuck.”
Pillette, Erath’s star receiver, said he was eager to take on the defensive role.
“When I came out, I knew I had to do one thing, and that did my job,” he said. “I felt like I had him, and that’s what I did.”
Erath ran for 80 of its 186 yards in the final 15 1/2 minutes and forced Eunice to turn the ball over on downs on two of its last three possessions and punt on the other.
“Probably the last two or three drives” was when the Bobcats established the offense, LeBlanc said. “I thought we made some mistakes early in our pass reads. We could have taken advantage of it early, and we must fix those. But I think they were tired. We ran a bunch of plays in the first half, and I thought they got a little tired at the end, and we were able to move the ball like we wanted to.”
Dautreuil ran for 71 yards and a touchdown and also played defense, while quarterback Lynkon Romero ran for 105 yards and a TD on 23 carries and completed 10 of 18 passes for 97 yards and a touchdown. Pillette had two catches for 15 yards and returned a kickoff for a touchdown in the first half.
“Shout out to Pillette, and Lynkon. Both played a heck of a game,” Dautreuil said. “They stepped it up at the end of the season. They’re my boys. I love ’em.”