Kaplan advances

The Kaplan Pirates scored 14 points in the first half and hung on to win 14-7 against Richwood in the second round of the Class 3A playoff game on Friday.

“I’m so excited,” Kaplan Head Football Coach Stephen Lotief said. “I’m so proud of our team and I’m so excited. This is why you coach high school football, for moments like this.”

It is the first time the Pirates win a second round playoff game since 1985.

The Pirates will be on the road again to take on Union Parish (11-1), who beat Brusly, 25-14 on Friday.

Union Parish is the No. 3 seed.

The Pirates scored at the 5:34 mark in the first period on quarterback Devonte Davis’ three-yard run.

Scott Russo nailed the extra point to put KHS up 7-0.

Davis finished the game with six carries for 43 yards.

The Kaplan running game was led by Tyson Broussard who had 34 carries for 123 yards.

In the two playoff games the Pirates have played in Broussard has run the ball a total of 56 times for a whopping 329 rushing yards.

The Pirates scored with 13 seconds before the first half to go into the locker room leading 14-0.

Davis connected with Kaylon Rudd on a nine-yard TD pass. Russo kicked his second extra point.

Kaplan’s second score was a 19-play, 97 yard drive that took 10 minutes off the clock.

“The drive in the second quarter is really what put us over the top,” Lotief said. “We ate up almost the entire quarter and scored, thats huge.”

The Pirates ran 18 running plays and the one pass play that went for a touchdown.

“Once we got the 14 point lead we just decided to play keep away,” Lotief said.”We knew we had the offense to keep the ball for a long time and that was something we wanted to do, and as you can see it’s something we were able to pull off pretty well.

In the game, Rudd had 17 totes for 79 yards.

He also had two receptions for 21 yards.

“Our offense played well,” Lotief said. “I feel everyone is going to look at the score and assume it was all defense. Don’t get me wrong the defense played great, but I just want to give a lot of credit to our offense. They did exactly what we asked them to do tonight and they played great.”

The defense is rolling right now for the Kaplan Pirates.

In two playoffs games the Pirates have only allowed 13 total points, and six of those came in the waning minutes of the Mansfield game.

“We are going to celebrate tonight,” Lotief said. “But the celebration ends tonight because we have a lot of work to do to get ready for a good team.”
Union Parish is a good team.

They will come into the game against Kaplan as the third seed in the 3A playoffs.

During the regular season they had 9-1 record. Their only loss came to Haynesville, the number one 1A school.

Union Parish during the regular season averaged 38.3 points per game offensively, while only allowing 13.2 points per game.

Union has held its opponents to single digits in scoring in five of its 10 regular season games. Twice they have shut out an opponent.

In its final game of the year Union Parish defeated Richwood, the team Kaplan just upset, by the final score of 33-24.

The quarterfinal game is scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 29th, at Union Parish.

Andy Bullard
Sports Editor