Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

PEARL — Cathedral High School junior quarterback Noah Russ threw five touchdown passes and Kaden Batieste had a pair of touchdown runs as the Green Wave rolled to a 47-14 win over the Park Place Christian Academy Crusaders Friday night.

Cathedral head coach Chuck Darbonne said the Green Wave was more productive and efficient on offense because the offensive line gave Russ time to throw the ball.

“We were able to do our job more consistently up front,” Darbonne said. “We were efficient throwing the ball. We were clicking on all cylinders for a while.”

Darbonne said that his offense could have put up even more points on the scoreboard had it not been for penalties and mental breakdowns.

“We had a lot of penalties that kept up from putting more points up. We left a lot of opportunities out there. We had some mental breakdowns that cost us,” Darbonne said. “We still had some turnovers.”

After trailing 6-0 early in the first quarter, Cathedral scored 21 consecutive points. Russ connected with Harper Jones with 2:16 left and Paxton Junkin’s extra point gave the Green Wave their first lead of the 2021 season at 7-6.

In the final minute of the opening quarter, Russ threw two touchdown passes to Christian Wright, the first one after a successful onside kick, to give Cathedral a 21-6 lead.

The Crusaders scored a touchdown and two-point conversion to make it a 21-14 game with 7:41 left in the second quarter, but Batieste’s first TD run of the game from 10 yards out with 4:36 left gave the Green Wave a 27-14 lead that it would take into halftime.

Batieste scored on another short touchdown run, this time at the 9:01 mark of the third quarter for a 33-14 Cathedral advantage. Russ then threw a 24-yard TD pass to Wright with 6:21 left in the third and later hooked up with Jones on a 34-yard scoring pass with 1:36 remaining in the same quarter to complete the scoring.

Darbonne said the defense came up with big stops when it had to and that the secondary had a good showing. He was not pleased with its run defense.

“Got a lot of work to do on our run defense. We gave up somewhere between 150 and 180 rushing yards. We gave up too many rushing first downs,” Darbonne said. “Overall, I was proud of the way they played.”

Cathedral (1-2) plays host to MAIS Class 6A Parklane Academy Friday at 7 p.m.