By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

RESERVE — Like Hahnville coach Lou Valdin a week ago, East St. John coach Larry Dauterive sees nothing less than a dangerous team when he looks at Destrehan, struggles or no.

After two years of falling short against their district rivals, East St. John (7-0, 2-0) broke through in a big way last season by topping Destrehan 41-9. D’haquille Williams led the way in a spectacular effort, catching four touchdowns including a Hail Mary scoring pass at the end of the first half.

This season, Destrehan enters at 2-5, coming off of a 35-14 loss to Hahnville. It likely needs a victory to keep playoff hopes alive.

“This thing is cyclical when it comes to who has the experience and who has the athletes,” said East St. John coach Larry Dauterive. “They’ve gone through a couple of quarterbacks this season. It’s been a metamorphosis for them. But they’ve played some very good teams. I think (coach) Chris (Stroud) has done a real good job and we respect them for sure.”

One area in particular Dauterive respects is the Destrehan defensive line, which has given East St. John problems in the past. DHS (2-5, 0-2) boasts a good unit there again.

“Their front three is as good as anyone we’re going to face. It’s very strong,” said Dauterive. “I don’t know if our offensive line can handle them. We’ll see, we had success there last season but not so in the years before.”

This past Friday night, the Wildcats found themselves in another shootout.

Trailing by three points in the fourth quarter, Dauterive reached into his bag of tricks and called a fake field goal. Darion Monroe’s touchdown pass to Andrew Taylor on fourth-and-one gave ESJ the lead for good in what would become a 48-31 win in Reserve.

“They knew we were faking it, and I counted on that,” said Dauterive. “When we snapped it, D’haquille ran across and everyone went with him. Darion flipped it to Andrew Taylor and he had open space ahead of him.”

Dauterive cautioned though that while his team remains undefeated, the ESJ defense must take a few steps forward.

“It’s eight weeks in and we’ve regressed. It’s our Achilles’ heel right now,” said Dauterive. “I talked to them about it again and reiterated that if we want to go far this season and make it what it can be, we need to get stops. We need to be stout on defense. And we’re not there right now.”

The defense did make the stops it made count: Floyd Raven and Williams each scored defensive touchdowns.

The offense certainly got in on the fun as well — in contrast to Dauterive’s words about the defense, this is a unit that appears to be getting stronger with contributions from different weapons each week. Rashad Green again stepped up, scoring an 85-yard touchdown on a pass from Williams, who was dominant again. He amassed 236 total yards and three scores.

“We’ve found some more weapons,” said Dauterive. “Rashad’s stepped up, and Dez Broussard’s another guy that can make plays. Andrew Taylor scored a couple of nice touchdowns. And Darion (Monroe) makes it all go.

“But I know they’ll give us all we want on Friday night, because I know how they coach and I know how they play over at Destrehan.”