Cathedral hosts St. Aloysius for homecoming on Friday
Published 8:51 pm Tuesday, October 20, 2020
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NATCHEZ — The Cathedral High School Green Wave will look to finish their regular season with a victory when they play host to the archrival St. Aloysius Flashes at D’Everaux Stadium Friday at 7 p.m.
In addition to this being the annual Pink Wave Game for Cathedral, it will also be the Green Wave’s homecoming game. Cathedral was originally scheduled to have its homecoming game two weeks ago against Centreville Academy, but Hurricane Delta forced a change of plans.
“There’s still a of distractions with the parade and other stuff leading up to Friday,” Cathedral head coach Chuck Darbonne said. “I expect our kids to remain focused on beating St. Al this week.”
As for it being the Pink Wave Game, Darbonne said, “We honoring breast cancer survivors and cancer survivors in general. It’s very important for me personally, with my mom having just battled it. She’s in remission now. It means a lot to me that we honor all these people.”
The Green Wave enters this contest on a three-game winning streak, including back-to-back shutout wins over Centreville on Thursday, Oct. 8 (34-0) and a 48-0 win at Amite School Center last Friday night.
Noah Russ threw four touchdown passes despite completing under 50 percent of his passes last week. The Green Wave jumped out to a 28-0 lead by the end of the first quarter and never looked back. Darbonne said he would like for Russ to have a little better efficiency.
“Not all the incompletions were on him. We had a few drops and a few mistakes with the protection. He needs to be more accurate. Quicker decision-making. I thought he played pretty well. He can do some things to make this offense more explosive,” Darbonne said.
As for what the Green Wave will be working on in practice to prepare for St. Aloysius, Darbonne said, “Preparing to make sure we can play with a wet ball. The forecast is for rain Thursday and Friday. Get better blocking and tackling. Correct some of the stuff we’ve made over the last few weeks. Just trying to get better as a team as we push toward the playoffs.”
As for the keys to victory, Darbonne said his team needs to control the line of scrimmage and win the turnover battle.
“We need to be the most physical team on both sides of the ball. Create some turnovers so our offense can have a short field. Creating some big plays for our offense,” Darbonne said.
Among the standouts Darbonne noted to watch for are Christian Wright, KJ Washington, Ayden Rojo, Paxton Junkin, and Jordan Henry.
St. Aloysius is 4-5 overall after defeating Washington School 43-28 last week. The Flashes have won two of their last three games.
“They have a couple of good receiver/running back-type kids who are dangerous in the open field. We have got to contain them,” Darbonne said. “Their defense plays hard. They get to the ball. They’re very aggressive. Our offense is going to have to match their aggressiveness.”