Daron Bartholomew leads Rams in shutout

BY STEVE AICARD

Sports Writer

EDGARD — Daron Bartholomew rushed for over 100 yards and scored four touchdowns in the first half to demolish the East Iberville Tigers last Friday night for the Rams Homecoming game.

“We tell our kids to never play down to your opponent, always play at the level that you play at.” Coach Laury Dupont stated after the 47-0 shutout. “I thought we played good. We played solid and we didn’t make mental mistakes as we did in the past.”

Rams quarterback; Olajuwon Hall completed five out of eight passes for over 120 yards. Josh Johnson, Jaron Howard, Hall, and Bartholomew combined, rushed for over 200 yards for the Rams, while Davone Lumar, Tiarus Jenkins, and Hall combined for over 130 yards. The Rams defense, led by Joseph Thomas, Romell Howard, Thorn August, and Jessie Silas stuffed the Tigers offense keeping them to less than 150 total yards.

The first quarter, Bartholomew ran from two yards out scoring the first Rams touchdown, with 7:33 remaining. On the kick return the Tigers fumbled the ball and the Rams recovered it on the Tiger 14 yard line, which set up a three-yard touchdown run by Bartholomew, 5:49 left in the quarter. The Tigers weren’t able to move the ball and with 3:33, Bartholomew ran into the end zone from nine yards out for the third Tigers’ touchdown.

Early in the second quarter, Hall scored a touchdown running 20 yards, with 10:41 remaining in the half. With 6:26 remaining in the half, Bartholomew burst through the middle of the Tiger defense from the Rams 35 yard line and ran 65 yards into the end zone for his fourth touchdown.

The Rams handed it right back with a fumbled punt return on the Rams 38 yard line, but hope of scoring before the end of the half disappeared as Silas caught his only interception for the evening, allowing the Rams to run out the clock to end the half Rams on top of the Tigers, 34-0.

The second half of the game was an opportunity for the Rams second team to play and they did just that. Johnson ran six yards scoring a Ram touchdown, with 3:07 remaining in the third quarter.

On the next Tiger possession, Rams linebacker, Thorn August, caught an interception and took it 15 yards to score the last touchdown for the evening, with 1:03 remaining in the third quarter. For the remainder of the game, Dupont removed the rest of the starters and let the younger players in the game.

The Rams are now 3-5 overall and 3-0 in district.

“We have to get better. We have two more district games and we want to win them and finish the district undefeated keeping a four-year streak intact and just see what happens. We want a home game for the first round of the playoffs.” Dupont said when asked how they were preparing for the playoffs.

The Rams the next game will be at home against N. Iberville (1-2 in district).