New Orleans – The Cecilia High School Bulldogs relied on an offense scoring nearly 50 points a game to reach the Division II Non-Select state championship game for a second straight year this season.
On Friday, the Dawgs got a big boost from their defense, which caused turnovers on Franklinton’s last two possessions to help Cecilia win the second state football title in school history with a 35-32 win over the Demons in the Caesars Superdome.
“It feels good that the community gets another one,” said Cecilia head coach Dennis Skains. “The community is always so supportive, and they care and they back Cecilia football so well, I’m just glad to see that the community gets another championship.
“Hopefully that’s something that they’ll cherish as much as they do the one from ’95.”
Cecilia senior quarterback Diesel Solari was named the game’s Most Outstanding Player after rushing for 148 yards and two touchdowns and throwing for 69 yards, including the go-ahead touchdown on a 39-yard pass completion to Ellis Stewart with 1:17 left on the game clock.
Solari said he and Stewart have developed a chemistry that leads to trust. On the winning TD, Solari heaved the ball into the corner of the end zone near the front left pylon, where Stewart reached over a defender and tipped it up to himself before making the catch.
“If you look at the last few weeks in the playoffs, that’s what I’ve been doing,” Solari said. “I trust the ball in his hands. Throw it up and he’ll come down with it.”
There was little doubt who the Bulldogs would rely on when they needed to score.
“I think when it got down to the end or in tight moments, it was like, we need to let Diesel win or lose this thing just because of who he is,” Skains said. “We know he’s our best player and we know he’s a guy that we want the ball in his hands on the last play of the game.
“But there’s a lot of good football players on the team. We also know that he doesn’t feel like he has to do it all on his own. He has guys that he trusts on the team. I think you see that when a couple of times he just throws the ball up there. He just has so much trust that some of these guys will come down with it, and that’s kind of what happened with Ellis on the last play.”
Skains noted that Stewart, also a senior, has been fighting the flu and still wasn’t fully healthy for Friday’s game.
“He wasn’t feeling great the whole game,” Skains said. “We tried not to play him on defense very much, just left him on offense, but he wasn’t quite himself. On that play, he stepped up and made the play.
“We had a couple of guys just not feeling good, that had been sick with the flu or something else, that just had lingering effects from it. To battle through that was pretty impressive, I think.”
Cecilia (12-3) entered the playoffs as the No. 18 seed and went on to beat four higher-seeded teams on the road to reach the state finals for the second straight year. The Bulldogs’ 2023 trip to the Superdome was the school’s first return to the finals since winning the title in 1995.
Against top-seeded Franklinton, the Bulldogs got on the scoreboard with an 88-yard kickoff return from Braylon Calais after Franklinton had gone ahead 7-0 with Sy Austin’s six-yard TD run. Austin finished with 147 yards and three TDs on 30 carries.
But Calais answered with the long return with 9:29 left in the first quarter.
The Bulldogs added touchdowns on their first three offensive possessions as well, going 84 yards in three plays with Solari going in from six yards out for a 14-7 lead with 6:13 left in the first period.
Franklinton went back ahead with 40 seconds to go in the quarter on quarterback Jacob Crain’s five-yard run and a 2-point pass to Austin.
Cecilia got two more touchdowns in the second quarter, with Franklinton getting a TD and a field goal, for a 29-24 Cecilia halftime lead.
Solari capped an 11-play, 52-yard drive with a one-yard TD run with 8:14 left in the half, with Austin scoring on a 13-yard run before a missed 2-point conversion, leaving Cecilia with a 22-21 lead.
Calais then scored on a one-yard run after Cecilia drove 54 yards in 12 plays. Gabe Ezell’s 36-yard field goal with no time left in the half provided the final points of the opening two quarters.
The teams were scoreless in the third quarter before Franklinton went ahead with 11:45 to go on Austin’s 14-yard scoring run.
Franklinton looked to add to its lead after Cecilia turned the ball over on downs with 3:21 left, but Cecilia sophomore defensive back Franky Frank forced and recovered a fumble at the Cecilia 49 on the first play following the turnover on downs to set up a four-play scoring drive, capped by Solari’s deep throw to Stewart with 1:17 left in the game.
The failed PAT kick left Cecilia with a 35-32 lead before Franklinton took possession. The Demons moved the ball to the Cecilia 28-yard line in six plays before Colton Faulk and Rylan Hardy sacked Crain at the 30, causing a fumble recovered by Jace Knott with 26 seconds remaining.
“I told them if we win the turnover battle, then we will win the game,” Franklinton coach Dominic Saltaformaggio said. “If they win the turnover battle, then they’ll win. We had a three-point lead with 3:12 left.
“We were a first down away from winning a state championship, but we fumbled the ball. We drive down the field and turn the ball over (again). In a championship game, you can’t turn the ball over. You can’t do it.”
At times the Bulldogs have had as many as six sophomores on the field on defense. Skains said that having a young and inexperienced defense led, but as a defensive-minded coach he was glad to see them come through when it counted.
“It’s good that they made the plays when it mattered and when they needed it, and that goes a long way toward their growth and what they’ll be able to do in the future,” the coach said.
One kneel by Solari ran out the remaining time on the Bulldogs’ championship.
“I’m proud of everybody, obviously,” Skains said. “The seniors, more than just this game … they’ve brought the program so far. And the seniors before them, too. To make a program go, a lot of different people are part of it.
“I’m just proud of all of them.”
