Catholic (Baton Rouge) was lights-out defensively Friday, shutting out host University Lab for three and a half quarters of the Baton Rouge powers’ annual showdown.
And after a couple missed opportunities early, the Bears (3-0) cashed in a pair of touchdowns in the second and third quarters behind their deep backfield and effective tempo to open up a four-score lead en route to a 28-14 victory.
The win is Catholic’s first on the field against the Cubs (1-2) since 2022 and marks the program’s first 3-0 start in that regard since 2021.
“It obviously feels good,” said senior safety Blaine Bradford, an Ohio State commit. “We kinda looked at it as just another game, honestly. We tried not to hype it up too much. Our team came together. We did the right things throughout the week, and the results are shown.”
Senior defensive back Taylor Goldsmith intercepted a pass on a well-read screen play to quickly end U-High’s first possession as an early highlight.
The Bears wouldn’t record another takeaway, but would smother the Cubs with an efficient, workmanlike performance to slow down their top weapons, apply pressure to the quarterback and keep the punter busy throughout the night.
“Discipline is something we talked about all week,” coach Hudson Fuller said. “We wanted to be relentless and play with discipline. You don’t limit big plays like we did tonight without playing disciplined football. So a great job by them. The sky’s the limit for that group, and we’ve gotta keep getting better.”
U-High managed force turnovers on downs on Catholic’s first two possessions.
But the Bears got rolling on their third, pushing the pace in the second quarter and riding a mixture of junior running backs Justin Batiste, Jayden Miles and Lamond Robinson all the way to a Miles power across the goal line.
“I’d say the first thing that they do an incredible job of — and this is hard — is they feed off of each other,” Fuller said. “They don’t necessarily count carries and things like that, and that’s hard to do, and they do a great job of it. And so it’s a gift as a coach to get to coach those guys and gives you a lot of options.
“And it’s gonna be critical for just our team. To win a lot of games through the course of the season, you’ve gotta be able to run the ball, and you can’t just do that with one guy. So it’s a gift for sure.”
And the Catholic quarterbacks began finding more room to operate as well with a Turner Goldsmith pass to Dyer Chambers helping set up a Baylor Graves touchdown keeper on the next possession for a 14-0 lead at the break.
“It’s amazing,” Turner Goldsmith said. “Our O-line — great group of guys, great people — they’re always down to go block for those guys and us, and we love them for that. And then J-Miles, Justin, Greg (Williams Jr.), Lamond, they’re all just dogs. They’re gonna go out there, and you know what you’re getting whenever you step on the field.
“And I’d say for me and Baylor, it helps us out because it kinda takes some pressure off of us almost. You don’t have to be Superman. You just run the offense and do it the way you’re supposed to.”
The Bears’ tempo continued working in the third quarter to help tack on another pair of scores: Miles taking a wildcat snap and finding tight end Hayes Schramm for the first, and then keeping for another powerful run through traffic for another.
U-High continued battling and finally sustained drives and found the end zone a couple of times in the fourth, both on passes from Ethan McGlynn to Charlie Pettit.
But the game was well in hand for Catholic by that point.
“Just keeping our head up,” LSU-committed two-way lineman Lamar Brown said of the message to the Cubs’ team. “We know what we’re facing with this team, new team — a lot of people left last year. But we didn’t let this affect us. We’re just going back Sunday and just keep balling. That’s it.”
U-High’s first three games have come against Class 5A competition before opening District 6-3A next week against Collegiate Baton Rouge (0-3).
Catholic meanwhile has now beaten top-10 teams in each of the Class 5A, Class 4A and Class 3A rankings in Destrehan (1-2), St. Thomas More (1-2) and the Cubs before making its longest trip of the season next week to West Monroe (2-1)
“I’ve told these guys this for a while now: They’ve got a chance to do something special,” Fuller said. “It’s a good feeling, but at the end of the day there can’t be any relief. We go up to West Monroe next week at their place, we’ve got MRA coming to us the next week and then we start district where there are a lot of teams that have improved and good programs. So we’ve just got to keep getting better.”