Joseph Adams, Kaleb Simon enjoy historic night in LCA win | High Schools

The Lafayette Christian Knights took a big step toward winning the District 8-2A crown with a 23-6 victory over the Loreauville Tigers on Friday night at Knight Field.

“Tonight is a prime example of what championship-level teams do,” said LCA coach Matthew Standiford, whose team got scores not only from its offense, but from its defense and its special teams units as well.

The defense led the way with another suffocating performance, holding the Loreauville offense to only 20 yards. The Tigers offense featured senior running back Thomas Carter, who had already surpassed 1,000 yards rushing on the season coming into Friday’s game.

“The game plan was to stop (Carter),” said senior linebacker Kaleb Simon, who said he’s been playing football with Carter “since Little League.” Simon finished with 15 tackles.

“Our defense was really suffocating all night,” Standiford said. “We forced them into some situations where they had to throw, and that played in our favor.”

The Knights scored on their first possession of the game. Sophomore running back Landon Prudhomme ran it in from 8 yards out, and LCA went up 7-0 midway through the first quarter.

The Loreauville defense, however, kept the Knights out of the end zone for the rest of the first half, forcing punts and causing turnovers.

The Tigers found themselves down 7-6 at halftime when Carter scored their only points of the game on a 1-yard touchdown run early in the second quarter.

In the second half, the Knights offense took the opening kick and drove deep into Tigers territory as Simon came in at running back and ran it in from 5 yards out to help extend the LCA lead to 14-6.

“We came out in the second half on fire with a great offensive drive,” Standiford said.

That turned out to be the last time the offense would score for LCA, but the defense and special teams had its back.

Following yet another defensive stop, the Knights scored a safety when the ball went over the head of Loreauville’s punter, who kicked it out of the back of the end zone. That made the score 16-6 near the end of the third quarter.

Then, as the Loreauville offense was finally driving once again, senior Skye Ryan-Alexander picked off senior quarterback Wyatt Hazelwood and took it 77 yards for a touchdown, helping give the Knights a commanding 23-6 lead in the fourth quarter.

“We never turned our backs on each other,” said Ryan-Alexander.

It was only fitting that two Knight defenders etched their names in the LCA record books during the suffocating performance.

Junior defensive end Joseph Adams became the all-time leader in career tackles for loss, passing Jayden Arceneaux’s record of 55.5, as well as Arceneaux’s single-season record of 36 TFLs set in 2025.

“It means a lot,” Adams said of the achievements. “That was my goal coming into school, to try to do the best of my ability every time I step out onto the field. The coaches and the scout team did a great job of preparing us for tonight’s game.”

Adams finished the game with 11 total tackles, six of them for loss. Included in that number were two sacks.

Simon, meanwhile, became the all-time leader in tackles at LCA, breaking Sam Taylor’s 280 career total tackles from 2020-2023.

And Simon did it on a night when he was given one of the highest honors that gets bestowed on a special Knight each year: the honor to wear No. 31 for one night as LCA remembers alumnus and Airman First Class Eugene Sonnier, who died in 2013.

Sonnier was an all-state linebacker in 2009, all-state wide receiver in 2010 and Defensive Player of the Year in 2011 while LCA was still playing in the LCSAA before moving into the LHSAA. Each year, a senior is chosen by the coaches, faculty and others to wear the No. 31 on senior night as a tribute to Sonnier and his lasting legacy at LCA.

“Kaleb is a special individual,” Standiford said. “There was no one more fitting to wear that number tonight. Not only with the way that he plays, but with the way he carries himself off the field.”