Ascension Catholic snaps 12-year losing streak on senior night

Twelve years of losing to the same team year in and year out is no fun, especially being that you share the same mascot as the foe – Bulldog. Friday night in Donaldsonville, Ascension Catholic’s Bulldogs (7-2, 3-1), were finally the best with a 34-20 over district rivals the White Castle Bulldogs (7-2, 3-1).

The game was a tale of two halves, with White Castle dominating the first and Ascension Catholic responding and outlasting the visitors in the second.

“The odds are for as after years, I mean dang,” Ascension Catholic head coach Doug Moreau said. “You have to give White Castle credit, the coach does an outstanding job with his football team, they’re disciplined and play real hard, and that’s why they win so many games. I feel honored to be able to say we beat White Castle. They’re a good football team.”

White Castle junior running back Dontrell Taylor began the scoring for White Castle with a 50-yard score with 4:28 remaining in the first quarter, giving White Castle an early 8-0 lead after a successful two-point conversion. Through two quarters Taylor had eight carries for 164 yards and two touchdowns. White Castle led 20-14 at the half.

For Ascension Catholic, quarterback DC Mattingly kept the home team in striking distance with a two-yard passing touchdown to senior receiver Cleveland Fefie. Fefie and Mattingly connected on the night for 55 yards. To add to the passing attack, Ascension Catholic’s senior fullback James Martin carried the rushing load with a total of 104 yards and three touchdowns.

In the second half, it was all about Ascension Catholic’s defense led by Delmond Landry and Landon Daigle. The hometown Bulldogs didn’t give a single point in the second half to the high-octane offense stemmed by White Castle’s Taylor.

White Castle head coach Lamar Thomas said his team just didn’t take care of things it needed to take care of.

“They made great adjustments and we had trouble with our blocking schemes and didn’t execute well,” Thomas said.

Offensively, Ascension Catholic took off full steam, ignited by a 22-yard run by junior wingback Kaleb Winchester who brought the ball to the White Castle 1. Martin would go in to pick up his second score of night.

With just over two minutes remaining in the third quarter, Martin struck again — on fourth-and-2 near the Ascension Catholic 40-yard line, Martin took a handoff, bounced off a defender and sprinted 54 yards inside the White Castle 10-yard line. He scored two plays later for his third touchdown of the game.

Mattingly added a 1-yard score to seal the deal late in the fourth quarter.

“We’ve got a good football team, and we’re capable of beating a whole lot of folks,” Moreau said. “It’s a testament to these young men to come back this week and play their guts out. Once we settled down, we were all right.”

Thomas added, “My hat’s off to them because they’ve got a good ball team. I expected a good game. But I expected to win.”