By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

Lutcher held off a late St. Louis surge on Friday night to advance in the Class 4A playoffs, capturing a 25-20 regional round victory.

“Like our other games with St. Louis, this one was close at half,” said LHS coach Tim Detillier. “We scored twice quickly in the second half, and we thought it would be like our other games this year. But credit to St. Louis, they had a good plan.

“The bottom line is, though, we won the game, and it gets even tougher from here.”

The Bulldogs will travel to No. 27 seed Huntington on Friday night for a quarterfinal matchup.

Gavin Webster completed 14-of-19 passes for Lutcher for 228 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions. He balanced that with 157 yards and two touchdowns on 17 rushing attempts.

Trevor Englade caught three passes for 106 yards and a score, while Jarvis Landry hauled in eight receptions for 80 yards.

Lutcher (12-0) led 25-0 late in the third quarter, but the Saints (8-4) made things interesting with three touchdowns in the last 15 minutes of play.

With 2:42 left in the third quarter, Stephen Sylvester scored on an 11-yard run to make it 25-7.

After a Lutcher turnover, the Saints embarked on a long drive before scoring at the 4:36 mark on the fourth quarter, when Drew Francois scored on a 1-yard run to cut the lead to 25-13.

A successful onside kick ensued, and St. Louis cut further into the lead on Francois’ second 1-yard plunge of the quarter, making it 25-20.

“At 25-0, we thought they’d have to throw,” said Detillier. “But they stuck with their gameplan.”

But St. Louis wouldn’t gather in a second onside kick, as the ball touched a Saints player before traveling 10 yards. Lutcher took over and ran out the clock.

Lutcher scored its first points midway through the first quarter on a 20-yard Austin Brack field goal.

That 3-0 lead held until 4:44 left in the first half, when Webster finally broke loose for the game’s first touchdown, a 55-yard run that made it 9-0. Webster added a 2-point conversion run to make it 11-0.

Webster scored once via his legs (a 33-yard run) and once via the air (a 58-yard pass to Englade) in the first five minutes of the third quarter to put LHS ahead 25-0.

St. Louis held a time of possession advantage of 30:59 to 17:01 in the game. LHS had only eight possessions.

Lutcher has knocked St. Louis out of the postseason in three of the last four seasons.