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LAPLACE, La. — Injuries and turnovers proved to be too much for Block High School to overcome as the Bears lost to the West St. John High School Rams 28-0 Friday night at Joe Keller Memorial Stadium in the bi-district (first) round of the LHSAA Class 1A Playoffs.

Block, the No. 21 seed, tried to stay in the game despite not being productive on offense at all. Its defense did its part until halftime — and that’s when West St. John took over, especially in the fourth quarter.

“We played as hard as we could. We lost a couple of players, our tight end and then an offensive lineman. They play both ways,” Bears head coach Benny Vault Jr. said. “We fought. But we didn’t have enough players.”

Even though the Bears had a young team and entered the playoffs with a 1-9 overall record, Vault wanted his players to get some valuable playoff experience. 

West St. John entered the playoffs as the No. 12 seed despite going just 2-4 overall during the regular season. But the Rams continued to wear down Block as the game wore on. It finally paid off as they scored 14 points in the fourth quarter.

“They were much bigger than us up front. We had a couple of players injured in the third quarter. That affected how we played defensively. They started running the ball on us,” Vault said. “The first two scores they had were fumble recoveries. They didn’t have 50 yards of total offense.”

The Rams went up 8-0 at the end of the first quarter and took a 14-0 lead into halftime.

Block finished its 2021 season with an overall record of 1-10. West St. John (3-4) will take on No. 5 seed Slaughter Community Center in the regional (second) round next week.