RESERVE — Forget all the touchdowns and big tackles. Perhaps the biggest cheer of the night in Reserve Friday night came when the Riverside Academy public address announcer told the standing room only crowd of euphoric Rebels fans that there would be no school on Friday.

“Because the Rebels are doing to the Dome,” he added.

The Riverside Rebels earned their first trip to the Louisiana High School Athletic Association’s All-State Sugar Bowl state finals in 15 years with a decisive 35-14 victory over cross-town and district rival St. Charles Catholic.

The No. 1 seeded Rebels will take on No. 3 seed Notre Dame at 1:30 p.m. for the Division III state championship in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. It will be Riverside’s first trip to the state finals since 2000.

Riverside has never won a Louisiana High School Athletic Association championship. The school did win eight football titles in the now-defunct Louisiana Independent Schools Association and was LHSAA runner-up in 1993, 1998 and 2000.

So the Rebels celebrated this win, with head coach Bill Stubbs jumping up and down in center of a tight circle of his players for a good bit of time.

“Savor this,” Stubbs then told his players. “Enjoy it. You played a heck of a game out there tonight.”

Riverside running back Brandon Sanders rushed for 55 yards and scored a pair of rushing touchdowns. Wide receiver Tyler Gauthier had seven catches for 138 yards and caught two touchdown passes from Jared Butler, one for 11 yards and another for 48 yards.

He also kicked all four extra points. Butler also ran for a touchdown.

St. Charles scored on a 5-yard run by quarterback Lloyd Nash and a 14 yard pass from Nash to Tahj Smith.

It was the second victory for Riverside over St. Charles this season. But it was nothing like the first, in which Riverside dominated the Comets in a 35-3 win. This time, St. Charles controlled the ball and the tempo of the game early and had Riverside on its heels for much of the first quarter with a 17-play, 77-yard drive that chewed up the first 8:35 of the game.

On third-and-goal at the 5, Nash escaped a would-be tackler in the backfield to scamper for the touchdown with 3:21 to play. Andrew Rodrigue’s PAT kick put the Comets ahead 7-0.

But Riverside came back with its own clock-chewing drive, taking 14 plays to drive 80 yards. After Butler ran to the Comets’ 1-yard line, he handed off to Brandon Sanders, who scored with 10:08 remaining in the first half.

And that would be all the scoring in the half as St. Charles kept the ball away from the Rebels for the most part. Twice the Comets got deep into Riverside territory but twice turned the ball over on downs. Riverside couldn’t gain a yard on one possession and was at midfield when the half ended.

Neither team could get much going in the third quarter, with nothing but an exchange of punts. The Comets had the Rebels stopped on their second drive as well, until the 4:33 mark when St. Charles was called for roughing the punter at the Riverside 47 yard line.

“I felt that one,” Gauthier said. “He kind of knocked the wind out of me.”

But it put new life into the Rebels with a first down at the Comets’ 32 yard line. Four plays later, Butler connected with Gauthier, who ran for the goal line and stuck the ball across for the score.

His follow-up PAT put Riverside ahead 14-0 with 2:40 remaining in the third quarter. More importantly, it gave the Rebels the momentum. Riverside would score 14 more unanswered points in the fourth quarter and led 28-7 with 7:24 remaining in the game.

St. Charles scored once more with 4:12 remaining in the game to cut Riverside’s lead to 28-14, but Riverside answered with 1:38 remaining when Butler broke free for a 9-yard score.

“We had kind of a slow start,” Gauthier said. “We knew it was going to be a challenge, and they would want to come back and get revenge. We pushed it. It was just mental errors.”

Butler, who finished 10 of 17 for 132 yards, said St. Charles came out playing well.

“They came out playing at a higher level,” he said. “We just didn’t bring our game in the first half. But in the second half, we brought it back. We just didn’t have the intensity that we usually play with.”

But Riverside’s defense did its job, holding the Comets to 190 yards this time, compared to 115 in the first game.

“I thought we played a really good game,” said senior linebacker Evan Veron. “The first half, we came out really slow. I thought the hype got to us really bad. But once we settled down, it was just another ball game. St. Charles is a really good football club.”

For the Comets, who last won a state title in 2011, it was disheartening to get one game away from a trip to the finals. But Coach Frank Monica said he knew what his team was up against.

“We knew our limitations going in,” Monica said. “And there’s only so much you can cover up. We didn’t do anything right in the second half. They were a better team than we were and they played better in the second half than we did. They deserve to go on.”

For Riverside, now it’s all about preparing for the final game of the season in the biggest arena in town.

“I started crying,” Sanders said. “I started crying with six minutes left in the quarter. We worked real hard and we got the job done. I’m so happy.”

— By Lori Lyona