By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

LUTCHER — While a number of teams in the area are playing against teams looking to spoil designs on an outright district title, Lutcher is facing an entirely different type of animal: a team out to win one.

The Bulldogs are indeed a win away from the District 6-4A championship, sporting an undefeated record in the league. But so too is Plaquemine, which will host the Bulldogs in a winner-take-all showdown.

Both teams have run through district play in impressive fashion. The Green Devils (6-3, 5-0) have outscored its league foes 207-32. Lutcher (8-1, 5-0) has done it by a combined mark of 248-63.

Julius Maracalin heads the Plaquemine attack — he scored three times and rushed for 214 yards against St. Michael two weeks ago in a key district game. The Green Devils have scored 37, 56, 62 and 30 points in its last four games.

Lutcher has won eight straight and now sits at No. 3 in Class 3A after its win over No. 2 Assumption, 28-9 on Friday.

LHS trailed 9-7 going into halftime but scored 21 unanswered in the second half.

Lutcher coach Tim Detillier had a simple message for his team at half, however.

“The most important play is the next play. Leave everything else behind,” he said. “Everything that could go wrong in that first half, went wrong. They stopped us, goalline stand, right before halftime. So you knew they had some momentum … even with that, though, it was still 9-7. Nose to the grindstone, and play 24 minutes of Lutcher football.”

And that is exactly what Lutcher did. Ruston Matherne scored two of his three rushing touchdowns in the second half and Daniel Taylor did the rest, his late 92-yard rushing touchdown wrapping things up.

Lutcher held Assumption to 169 total yards.

Taylor rushed for 228 yards and a score on 22 attempts to lead Lutcher. Matherne rushed for 143 yards.