By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

EDGARD — West St. John coach Robert Valdez said that all of his team’s goals are still ahead of them.

As the Rams (4-2, 1-0) prepares to visit Ascension Catholic (2-4, 0-1), they seek to continue its strong play this season en route to a district title, a high playoff seed, and a run at the Class 1A state championship.

Ranked ninth in Class 1A and coming off of its strongest predistrict finish in years, the Rams can do all of that, Valdez said, if they continue to evolve and improve.

“We control our own destiny. We don’t need any help, and we want to keep it that way,” said Valdez. “We still need to be more effective along the line of scrimmage, our lines. But like I told our kids, we can do everything we’ve set out to do, but we can’t overlook anybody. And we’re focused on Ascension Catholic.

The Bulldogs defeated False River and Ascension Episcopal in back to back games in mid-September to move to 2-2, but have fallen hard in consecutive losses to Central Catholic (a 48-6 loss) and most recently St. John-Plaquemine (by a 53-6 margin) last week in their district opener.

“Ascension Catholic plays hard and they have some strong athletes,” said Valdez. “We’d like to get hot early and make them play from behind.”

ACHS allowed 500 yards of offense to St. John last week, 417 in the rushing column. For a Rams team looking to establish itself as a dominant running team, Friday might provide an opportunity.

The Bulldogs are led offensively by quarterback Collin Rowland.

Kylum Favorite rushed for 82 yards and three touchdowns on 10 carries. Howard connected with Austin Terry and Jarius Moll for touchdown throws of 20 and 38 yards respectively. Jimmy Conner also scored a rushing touchdown, a 27-yarder in the fourth quarter.

WSJ led 20-0 after the first quarter.

Valdez said that after playing “up” in predistrict, the game seemed to slow down for his players.

“We played some extremely tough people,” said Valdez. “So when we get into district, it was our first chance to really be the bigger team.We did some good things, but we’re still a work in progress.”