By RYAN ARENA

Sports Editor

Hahnville won its third straight game Thursday night, but it wasn’t quite the performance Coach Lou Valdin envisioned in his team’s last non-district contest.

The Tigers defeated John McDonogh 28-0 at Hahnville on Friday night, but Valdin felt his team may have become complacent after building an early lead.

“Defensively, we were good. Offensively, I’m not satisfied at all,” Valdin said. “We didn’t protect the passer well. We had several drops. Our quarterbacks were accurate, but there were just too many drops.

“You can’t do that and win in our district.”

Hahnville led 14-0 after a quarter. But that score wouldn’t change at all until the fourth quarter, when the Tiger offense scored two more times to create the 28-0 final score.

The time in between saw a number of Tiger mistakes – three turnovers, including two interceptions, and 14 penalties for 125 yards.

“We’re gonna work on it, and we’re gonna fix it,” Valdin said. “It being homecoming might have had a little to do with it, the distractions that come with it. But you really don’t want to take a step back like this right before district opens.”

The two teams combined to complete only 14-of-48 passes for 158 yards.

The Tiger defense, however, left Valdin with no complaints at all. It held McDonogh to negative-10 yards of total offense, including negative-45 yards rushing.

Jai Steib opened up the scoring in the first quarter, rushing for a 22-yard score to make it 7-0.

Alfred Blue sprung loose for a 50-yard touchdown run later in the quarter to run the score to 14-0.

Brian Ensminger and Blue each scored on 1-yard plunges in the fourth quarter to round out the Hahnville scoring.

But Valdin knows things will have to improve drastically offensively with Destrehan visiting this Friday night.

“Give John McDonogh credit, they played hard all night,” said Valdin. “But we basically kept shooting ourselves in the foot.”