By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

EDGARD — Preparation from one week to another is like night and day for West St. John. The Rams hope the results remain static, though.

In perhaps the most impressive regular season victory of the Robert Valdez era at West St. John, the Rams downed St. James 20-6 in a dominating effort. Time and time again, West St. John got into the Wildcats’ backfield and disrupted their offense, especially on passing plays—WSJ linebacker Darzil Washington alone tallied four sacks.

But their defensive gameplan for the Wildcats will have to be tweaked at minimum. St. James’ Wing-T is about the furthest thing away from the shotgun spread, which stands as Bonnabel’s weapon of choice offensively.

“It’s a big challenge for us,” said Valdez. “They have so much speed, and they put four and five wide out there. Their quarterback is very athletic and he’s got a live arm.

“For us, our challenge as coaches is to get our kids to change gears now. You’re facing two very, very different extremes. Against the Wing-T, we wanted to make them rush things. 90-percent of the time, the quarterback is under center. He gets the snap, he’s faking pitches, he has his back to the line … we wanted to force them to run things faster. Obviously, Bonnabel won’t give that same look out of the shotgun.”

Valdez admitted that his team’s defensive gameplan worked better than he would have imagined against the Wildcats. He credited the play of his defensive line, including Michael Dede, Steven Brignac, Ronnie Feist and Eric Bell.

“The linebackers get the stats, but our lineman eat up double teams and set the tempo up front. When they play well, it gives our linebackers a chance to make plays. We ask our lineman to be unselfish in that way.”

Washington concurred after the game.

“It’s all up to the defensive line. They got good push and it opened holes for me to run freely,” said Washington.

The offensive side of the ball impressed as well. In particular, Valdez and his staff may have found an emerging talent in Blandy Young, who began the game at slot receiver but by night’s end was providing strong play at running back.

Young’s impact on the game came swiftly as he rushed for 75 of his game high 184 rushing yards on a jet sweep to score from the second play from scrimmage. He scored twice on the night.

“Coach chewed us out all week (after a loss in the jamboree),” said Young. “The big difference was tonight, we wanted it. We all wanted it, and we gave all we had.”

Valdez said that it looks like Young’s play at tailback likely makes the move less of an experiment and more of a staple.

“We saw how he hit the hole, and it’s a little like, ‘Wait a minute, now,’” said Valdez. “We might have found something here. He gets from zero to sixty in a very short time.”

But all of the Ram tailbacks ran effectively at times. The team’s offensive line controlled the line of scrimmage.

“When you see kids who love to go out there and go all out to block, it’s a beautiful thing for a coach,” said Valdez.

Bonnabel, which finished 1-9 a year ago, fell at East Jefferson 28-13 last week. West St. John’s defense dominated a year ago in a 16-0 shutout of the Bruins, and Valdez hopes to see that kind of performance become a trend.

West St. John held the Bruins to minus-16 yards of total offense and no first downs on a rainy night.

But that was a different Bruins team, one that ran the Wing-T just like St. James did. It was the second straight week the Ram players had seen it.

Valdez said that aside from adjusting the gameplan to try to negate the Bruins’ passing attack, he saw enough things to improve upon in Friday night’s game Friday, even in such an impressive effort.

“There were a couple of dry spells, some drives that stalled,” said Valdez. “We need to establish a little more consistency, finish drives, and take better advantage when we’re set up by our special teams.”