Three-OT Thriller

ERATH — North Vermilion scored on the first play of the third overtime period, then held Erath to negative yards on its final possession to claim a 23-15 win over the Bobcats on Friday.
It was a thrilling win for the Patriots under first-year head coach Joe Heintz, and a tough loss for the Bobcats, who fell to 0-2.
“Hats off to our defense,” Heintz said. “I thought we played with tremendous effort, and what they do on offense is scary, because they’ve got weapons all over the place. We stepped up when we needed to on defense and made some stops.”
Erath coach Eric LeBlanc also was proud of his team’s effort in the game.
“I’m proud of our effort, but there’s always some technical things that we need to fix, and making adjustments on the field, but those kids gave a great effort, and we’ll go back to the drawing board we’ll look at righting the ship on Sunday,” LeBlanc said.
The game was a defensive battle for much of the four regulation quarters and the three overtimes.
Heavy rains for much of the afternoon left the field soaked, and it quickly turned muddy, especially with another shower that came at halftime and lasted into the third quarter.
Erath outgained the Patriots 225 yards to 168, on the strength of 72 yards passing to North Vermilion’s 10. The Patriots held a 168-153 edge on the ground.
But after quarterback Lynkon Romero’s one-yard TD run in the first quarter for Erath and Grant Wise’s 18-yard touchdown run for North Vermilion in the second quarter, scoring opportunities were scarce until overtime.
Both teams set up for field goals, North Vermilion on its first drive after halftime and Erath on the final drive of the game with just three seconds left, but in both cases the snaps could not be handled on the muddy field and neither team tried the kick.
The Bobcats won the coin toss in overtime and deferred, giving North Vermilion a first-and-goal at the 10.
When the Bobcats stopped Tucker Denais on fourth down inside the 1-yard line, Erath had a chance to end the game by scoring on its possession.
But a holding penalty set Erath back on first down and the Patriots got a sack on fourth down to send it to a second OT.
This time, Erath got the ball first, and Mason Hebert barreled down to the 1 on first down. Romero scored on a sneak on second down, and the Bobcats went for 2, getting the points when Romero reached the ball over the goal line as his momentum was stopped short.
That gave Erath a 15-7 lead, and again the Bobcats looked to be in good shape when North Vermilion netted six yards on its first three plays.
Norris Benoit kept the Patriots’ hopes alive when he scored on a fourth-down toss from the 4, and quarterback Logan Thompson knotted the score at 15-15 by carrying in for the 2-point try.
In the third overtime, North Vermilion got possession first, and a play-action pass on first down saw Ethan Tate get wide open in the end zone for a 10-yard TD catch. Denais carried in for the 2-point conversion for a 23-15 lead.
“In overtime we’d been going jumbo a lot (with extra linemen and a power formation), and we hit them with a play-action,” Heintz said. “We thought it was going to be there, and it was.”
Then the Patriots turned up the defensive pressure, forcing an incompletion on first down and getting a 12-yard sack from defensive lineman Jace Baldridge, with help from a couple of teammates, on second down.
A third-down pass netted a few yards but those were lost when the ball was lateraled. On fourth down from the 24, a final pass fell incomplete.
The win is the first for head coach Joe Heintz, who took the reins this year. North Vermilion improved to 1-1 while Erath fell to 0-2.
Heintz said he couldn’t have been happier as he watched his team celebrate in front of the band and fans after the game.
“Look at them,” he said. “They deserve one like this, after last week’s tough loss, I’m happy for these kids.
“We’re going to enjoy this one this weekend, and we come back Monday. We’ve got Abbeville. It doesn’t get easier.”
LeBlanc said that his team faced adversity last season and responded well, and with a good senior group returning this year he expects the same.
“There’s a lot of returning seniors this year, and we went through a lot of adversity last year,” the coach said. “We went through some rough patches, some games where we played lesser than we were able to.
“I think we’ve got a good group here, a good group of kids that’s going to respond well. We’ll just get back to work on Sunday and Monday, when we put the pads on, and get ready to go for week 3.”
The Bobcats travel to New Iberia to face Catholic High on Friday. North Vermilion travels to Abbeville to face the Wildcats.