By RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur

LAPLACE — Only one of Destrehan and Acadiana would have a chance to compete for their third state championship in the last eight seasons after their Class 5A semifinal clash Friday night.

It’ll be the Rams.

Acadiana ended Destrehan’s on-field undefeated streak this season on a cold, windy night in Lafayette and did it convincingly, besting the Wildcats 35-7.

Acadiana (13-1) will face Parkway in the Class 5A state championship game.

The Wrecking Rams knocked out star Destrehan quarterback Donovan Isom in the first quarter with a head injury, but Isom returned for the second half. But he simply wouldn’t get many chances to put points on the board; Acadiana’s defense was suffocating, and its Veer-based offense held the ball for nearly the entirety of the fourth quarter.

After the game, Destrehan coach Stephen Robicheaux stressed to his team that while it fell short of its ultimate goal of a state championship, this team restored Destrehan football to statewide prominence after three consecutive losing seasons.

“I’m very proud of this team,” he said. “To come from 3-7, 2-8, 4-5 and be playing in this game tonight, to go 13-1 … They’ve accomplished so much. We got beat by a real good football team tonight. They played a great game and they deserved it.”

The Rams dominated on the ground, churning out 361 total rushing yards.

Acadiana led 13-7 at halftime. On Destrehan’s first possession of the second half, the Rams turned back the Wildcats’ best chance to swing momentum.

After a big kickoff return, the Wildcats (12-2) began at the Acadiana 47. Isom completed passes to Will Mathews and Kirk Merritt to push his team down to the 22, and a short completion to Tramaine Armstrong gave Destrehan 1^st and 10 at the 16. But three plays later, DHS had gained no yards, and worse, a Isom was flagged for intentional grounding on a third down throwaway.

Quincy Arceneaux took Isom down for a sack on fourth down and charged up the Acadiana sideline.

“You’ve gotta score there,” said Robicheaux. “We’re down six, and you can take the lead. We needed to make that happen and we didn’t.”

Moments later, that Rams’  sideline exploded again.

On the Rams’ second offensive play of the second half Donovan Solomon found running room up the middle and accelerated to daylight, leaving everyone behind en route to a 64-yard touchdown run to extend Acadiana’s lead to 21-7.

Acadiana forced a Destrehan punt and then took just six plays to score again, going 63 yards and capping things with an De’Edward Cormier 30-yard quarterback keeper to make it 28-7 with 3:06 left in the third.

Destrehan was shellshocked and never recovered. After another  defensive stop, Acadiana took the ball and held it for the next 6:03 of game time, finishing a 15-play drive on an Elijah Ledet touchdown run to put the punctuation mark on a semifinal victory.

“We kept them in the wind for two quarters. We held it for almost all of the fourth, and(Isom) went out,  of course, which hurt them,” said Acadiana coach Ted Davidson.

Isom was checked out on the sidelines for concussion symptoms after being jarred by a big hit with eight minutes left in the first quarter.

“He took a pretty big hit. He had a little headache, but he was ok. We had to go through precautions,” said Robicheaux. “We wouldn’t have let him go back out there otherwise. We’re not going to endanger his future.”

Mathews scored Destrehan’s lone touchdown, scoring on a 25-yard touchdown run with 7:41 left in the first quarter.

Acadiana held Destrehan to 152 total yards, including just 50 through the air.

“That’s the best defense we’ve faced all season,” said Robicheaux. “Their defensive backs just kept making plays.”

Said Davidson, “I can’t say enough about our defense, players and defensive coaches. We’ve been able to shut down some really explosive offenses over the past few weeks.”

De’Edward Cormier led the Rams with 121 yards on 10 carries. Edward Cormier added another 88 yards on 14 carries.