By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

EDGARD – Two years ago, White Castle defeated district foe West St. John not once, but twice en route to its Class 1A state championship victory.

The Rams have a chance to return that favor Friday night.

West St. John (7-3) will host White Castle (8-2) in a regional round playoff game, a rematch of the regular season battle that saw the Rams capture a 41-22 victory in Edgard en route to the District 9-1A championship.

This one will be in Edgard too, a week after the sixth-seeded Rams downed Opelousas Catholic, 53-13, and the 11th-seeded Bulldogs toppled Hannan, 24-7, in the first round.

Much like in 2010, the two teams are matching up early in the postseason. White Castle defeated West St. John, 12-0, in that year’s opening round.

Last season, the Rams were the team that won the regular season meeting between the teams, and the team that would go onto the Super Bowl; West St. John finished as state runner-up.

“I think you’ve got two teams that kind of mirror each other,” said West St. John coach Robert Valdez. “Blue collar families, similar kids … two schools that have had some big time student athletes.

“These are two communities with a lot of pride, and two schools that embrace the responsibility of being able to play the game of footbal at a high level.”

This game figures to be a higher scoring contest. West St. John has scored 58, 62, 41, 56, 47 and 53 points since the beginning of Class 1A play. White Castle has flown north of the 50-point mark five times itself.

The Rams employ a no-huddle attack fueled by a blistering tempo – one born the day of the Oct. 19 matchup between the two rivals. Valdez and his staff decided the morning of that game to pull the trigger on an Oregon Ducks-style attack, and the results didn’t disappoint; the Rams reached White Castle’s redzone or scored on nine of its 12 possessions.

Kylum Favorite rushed for 129 yards and three touchdowns in the first meeting. Jeremy Jackson rushed for 145 yards and a score while Austin Howard completed 11 of 15 passes for 241 yards and a touchdown.

West St. John won’t have the element of surprise this time.

“I expect them to put a heavy emphasis on stopping the run,” said Valdez. “For us, we need to identify their adjustments and find a way to beat it. We’ll continue to be aggressive offensively.”

White Castle, however, challenged the Rams in that game in spite of the final score; the Bulldogs led 10-0 and generated a handful of big plays for scores on the back of coach Lamar Thomas’ Wing-T attack. Tailback Daryl Young had a very strong game, rushing seven times for 162 yards and two scores, while teammate Tyrie Lang gained 126 yards and a score on 10 carries.

“They felt they were in that first game,” said Valdez. “I expect them to have a lot of energy … The biggest thing in terms of stopping those big plays is that when we’re in position to make a (defensive) play, we’ve got to make the play. They run a lot of motion pre-snap …there’s  a lot of bells and whistles to what they do. For our guys, it’s get on our keys defensively and be able to attack.”

The Rams’ pace may have worn the Bulldogs down in that game, however; West St. John scored 29 second half points to the 12 of White Castle, which only dressed 28 players, many of which play both ways.

While West St. John pulled away in that first game, Valdez said that complaciancy will not be tolerated.

“The way to guard against that is to make your practices a nightmare,” Valdez chuckled. “We as a staff aren’t about to allow any of our players to go out there thinking it’ll be easy. We want our student-athletes to understand the task at hand here.

“We don’t want to have to dig ourselves out of a hole. We did that last time. We need to control the tempo and dictate the pace.”