Abbeville gets 3rd win

LEROY — For the first time in nearly a decade, the Abbeville Wildcats defeated the North Vermilion Patriots in a hard-fought battle that went down to the wire.
Pulling off the 14-7 victory put the Wildcats at 3-2 on the season, the first time in a long time they’ve gone in to district play with a winning record.
The Wildcats defense showed up prepared for the Patriots, effectively shutting them down for most of the game.
Their morale got a big boost late in the first quarter when Dominick Nunez picked off a pass thrown by North Vermilion’s Dade Dieterich and ran in it for a short touchdown. A missed field goal left the score 6-0 in the Wildcats’ favor.
It was a defensive showdown for most of the second quarter, with several punts and turnovers on downs with neither side giving up much ground.
However, Abbeville quarterback Demarcus Collins got a long pass off to Jose Pedroza for a 34-yard touchdown and a subsequent 2-point conversion by Cooper Derouen put Abbeville even further ahead, 14-0. That score held until the end of the half.
North Vermilion came out and received the kickoff to open the second half, driving the ball all the way down the field in a nearly 4-minute possession that ended when Dieterich ran it in for a touchdown. The biggest gains of the drive came from Connor Dupuy, who had the most receiving yards of the night for the
Patriots.
Abbeville’s three wins is the most in two years.
“I was worried sick,” Abbeville coach Gary Adkins said. “[North Vermilion] came back out and played really well.”
However, it seemed to him that the Wildcats were learning to win as they went.
“They didn’t have a whole lot of wins in them,” he explained, “but they kept evolving and kept getting better and better.”
With the score at 14-7, the Patriots made a last, long drive down the field, but could not get it into the endzone, and a sack of Dieterich ended their final drive of the night. Abbeville got the ball with just over a minute to go in the game, eventually taking the knee to end it.
Abbeville’s victory can largely be credited to their defense, which kept North Vermilion’s offensive stats low. They had a total of 168 yards on the night, with the bulk of them coming from the ground game. Dylan Dent led the way on the ground with 78 of the total 118 rushing yards. Caleb Castro, Dupuy and Dieterich each picked up some yards (14, 11, and 11 respectively).
Leading that Abbeville defense in big plays was Ashton Greene, who had two fumble recoveries and some major stops along the way. He finished with seven tackles.
On the offensive side of the ball, Abbeville had 276 total yards, with just over 100 of them coming from the passing game. Collins was the sole quarterback of the night for the Wildcats, where he also picked up 33 rushing yards. Leading the way on the ground, however, was Pedroza with 61 and Matt Johnson with 55.
“Our goal is still the same,” Adkins said of his Wildcats. “We want to make it into the playoffs, and for the first time in a long time, we’re going into the district with something to play for.
“I never really worried that we couldn’t get it done,” he added. “It was just a matter of putting our foot down and asking them to give us what we need.”
Next week, Abbeville heads to Cecilia for district play. North Vermilion heads to Kaplan for a parish and district rivalry game.