By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

DESTREHAN – Destrehan is looking to snap a four game winning streak and will face a district foe looking to snap a negative run of its own on Friday.

East Ascension, itself coming off of three straight losses, will host the Wildcats Friday. But Destrehan coach Chris Stroud said that while the Spartans’ record is not sparkling over the past month, it’s a dangerous team: EA played Destrehan rivals Hahnville and East St. John tough into the fourth quarter before ultimately falling.

“Coach (John) Lambert has done a great job there,” said Stroud. “They’ve lost a couple of close ones. But they are really, really good defensively. EA is just a good, tough football team.”

Stroud pointed to the strength of the Spartan defensive line as a concern, and said things don’t get much softer behind it.

“They’ve got the best secondary we’ve seen from them in the last four or five years,” said Stroud.

Destrehan almost certainly needs to win the next two games to maintain postseason hopes. Stroud said that he doesn’t expect his players to “shut it down” mentally after three straight lopsided losses in district.

“Will we shut it down early or be ready to play?” asked Stroud rhetorically. “We haven’t shut it down all season. Even in blowouts, our kids have come out and played better football in the second half. They want to win, and I don’t think they’re looking ahead at all. We just want to get a win, erase the East St. John game and feel good again.”

Kevin Smith and Rickey Jefferson each scored touchdowns for DHS on Friday.

HAHNVILLE HOSTS ST. AMANT – Hahnville coach Lou Valdin was extremely proud of his team, even in a losing effort on Friday. But he wants to see his Tigers come back down on the winning side of things this week as it hosts District 6-5A foe St. Amant.

The Gators enter on a high after trouncing rival East Ascension 45-17. Hahnville (5-2, 2-1) fell to Dutchtown (8-0, 3-0) and fell into second place in the 6-5A race.

Valdin said his team has nothing to be ashamed of, but simply needs to clean up some errors it made in the close loss to the state’s fourth ranked team.

“I’m extremely proud of my football team,” said Valdin. “They played hard. I thought we were by far the more physical team. Our quarterback (Brian Ensminger, who was suffering from an injury) goes out there and guts it out on one leg. Tonight came down to two long runs and our inability to put it in the end zone.”

The two long runs Valdin refers to came at the hands of Effrim Reed, Dutchtown’s electrifying tailback who scored on rushes of 86 and 31 yards.

Reed finished with 23 carries for 237 yards.

“Reed’s just a great, great player,” said Valdin.

St. Amant (4-4, 1-2) is 4-2 in its last six games.

The Gators have scored 37 or more in five of those contests.