West St. John topples Ouachita Christian 32-20 to advance to 1A title game

By RYAN ARENA

Sports Editor

The West St. John Rams aren’t quite ready to say goodbye to Coach Laury Dupont.

When they finally do, it’ll be on the big stage – the Class 1A state championship game at the Superdome.

That’s because the Rams won their ninth straight game on Friday night, 32-20 at Ouachita Christian in the Class 1A state semifinals.

Dupont, who is retiring at the conclusion of this season after 35 years of coaching, now has a shot to add a second milestone to the one he has already achieved this season – his first win this year notched his 200th victory as a head coach. One on Saturday over third-seeded South Plaquemines, who advanced with a 56-6 win over Desire Street, will mean a fourth state championship.

“Really, our goal this year was to win district, then take one at a time thereafter,” said Dupont. “We’re healthy and focused at this point. These kids really played well to get here.”

The state title game will kickoff at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

The win was West St. John’s (9-5) ninth straight, and the script for this game followed the same as in most of the previous eight. West St. John took an early lead in the first half and controlled the line of scrimmage the rest of the way, rushing for 288 yards.

Kenneth Dabney led the way with 171 yards and a touchdown. Romell Howard ran for 91 yards and two scores on 19 carries, while Tyler Lewis added 33 yards on six carries.

Once again, the Rams’ balanced mix of talent at running back proved to be a difference – Howard’s power perfectly complimented the speed and elusiveness of Dabney and Lewis.

“We had real good balance running both to the outside and the inside,” said Dupont. “We were able to run it right at them.”

Dray Joseph added another degree of balance through the air – Joseph notched 119 yards and two touchdowns on 10-of-19 attempts. He also passed for a two-point conversion and two interceptions.

Joseph helped kick off the scoring in the game, when he found Terrance Nathan for a 5-yard scoring pass to give the Rams a 6-0 lead in the first quarter.

Ouachita Christian (11-3) answered when Jacob Davis found Taylor Dawson for a 7-yard touchdown, giving Ouachita Christian a 7-6 lead.

But Joseph and Jesse Silas proved to be a lethal combination in the second quarter, hooking up twice for touchdowns of 40 and 9 yards. The Rams took a 20-13 lead into halftime.

And then the Rams took over for good. Howard scored on runs of 3 and 2 yards in the third quarter to put the Rams ahead 32-13, effectively ending the Ouachita Christian threat.

West St. John will now make its seventh appearance in the state championship game under Dupont, after trips in 1992, ‘93, ‘94 and ‘98 (all losses), and 2003 and ’04 (both wins).

The semifinal win, for Dupont, sets up what could be the ideal ending to an extremely successful career.

“It would be a storybook ending. I hadn’t even been really thinking about it this year,” said Dupont. “If it happens, then it was meant to be. “Hopefully, it’ll be that real good ending for us this year.”