Thibodaux Rebounds From Last Week’s Loss With 49-7 Win Over H.L Bourgeois

Written by Kyle Valdez

After suffering a tough loss to Destrehan last week, Thibodaux’s offense regained their footing and shook back in a big way. In Week 9 action, the Thibodaux Tigers completely dominated the second half en route to a 49-14 blowout win over the H.L. Bourgeois Braves.  
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Thibodaux’s QB Luke Alleman led the Tiger offense by throwing 16-22 for 278 yards, including 5 TD passes. Alleman’s favorite targets on the night were receivers Marquel Price and Kyren Lacy. Although Price had two receptions on the night, he finished with 72 yards and two TD receptions. Lacy (ULL commit, offered by Miami, Kansas, Virginia) caught 4 passes for 41 yards and 3 TDs.

Prior to the game, Lacy discussed his team’s focus, “We had to come in more focused than last week. I had to get on them, not take it too lightly, and play hard every play.” Lacy backed up his words by scoring the game’s first points on a 3-yard TD reception from Alleman. 
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The next drive, Thibodaux lengthened the early lead 14-0, via a TD reception of 25 yards by Marquel Price. At that moment, it felt like the Tigers were well on their way to making the game a blowout sooner rather than later. However, the HLB defense stood up and shut out Thibodaux for the remainder of the first half.

At the 8:03 mark in the second, the Braves cut the lead to 14-7, when QB Jordan Rainey rushed for six  yards on a keeper. The next drive, HLB sophomore Da’Wuan Diggs picked off an Alleman pass to give HLB the ball back. After bringing the ball inside the Thibodaux 35-yard line towards the end of the half, the Braves failed to put the ball in the endzone. 
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After letting HLB hang around for the first half, Thibodaux’s offense woke up and started finding the endzone again. In the first two minutes of the third, Alleman found Lacy twice for catches of 15 and 23 yards to extend the Tiger lead to 28-7. The next drive, Alleman hit Maurquel Price for a 47-yard score. Thibodaux finished their scoring for the night when Tyren Young picked off a Jordan Rainey pass and returned the ball 45 yards to give Thibodaux a 49-7 lead.

The dominant win brings Thibodaux’s record to 7-2 on the year, and 3-2 in district play. With a district championship out of sight, the Tigers are looking to go on the road and get a win against a very solid East St. John team. It appears that the Tigers are bound to host their first playoff game since 2016.  
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Maruquel Price commented on the idea of Thibodaux hosting a playoff game, “We hosted a playoff game four years ago, but it was a bad outcome. It’s been a while since a Thibodaux High team won seven games, and if we win next week, that’s 8-2. That’s two home games: that’s great, and we haven’t had that before.”

For HLB, they dropped to 1-8 on the season and 0-5 in district. The Braves disappointing season continues to drag on for yet another week. Although they’re still relatively young, the Braves have still underperformed. Maybe not winning games is the goal, but they have been flat out outclassed the past five weeks. In district play, they have been losing by an average of 44.4 points. To give the young squad some credit, they kept tonight’s game entertaining for the first half: only trailing by one score. However, the wheels fell off in the second half. It was ugly to watch some players flat out not put any effort into plays; multiple times you could find an HLB not move a muscle on a snap. Looking forward to their Week 10 matchup, they will close their season as they travel to face Archbishop Shaw.