District 4-3A is the most local of any district in Southwest Louisiana, comprised of Iota, Jennings, Iowa, St. Louis, Westlake and South Beauregard.

But when the teams take the field this week five of the six won’t be staring across at another area team. The lone exception is South Beauregard (1-0), which travels to old rival Rosepine (0-1).

The Jennings Bulldogs, the defending district champions and state semifinalists in 2013, will hit the road to take on their oldest rival in the Eunice Bobcats (1-0).

“These games with Eunice usually come down to just one or two plays,” head coach Rusty Phelps said. “This is one of the longest standing rivalries in the area. These kids compete against each other and play together when they are younger. Both towns are very proud of their football teams and both schools have a lot of similarities.”

The Bulldogs opened the season with a 36-8 victory at home over St. Martinville, a win Phelps said he was happy with but saw areas in which his squad could improve.

“We got the ball down to their 1- and 10-yard lines and turned it over at the start of the third quarter,” Phelps said. “We had went a little bit flat. I thought we executed well in the first half, but we need to work on playing at the level for the entire game.”

Travis Etienne led the Jennings offense with 149 yards and a pair of touchdowns on 16 touches.

The Bulldogs are the favorites heading in to the matchup with the Bobcats, but know that the rivalry game will be no easy task.

“Coach (Paul) Trosclair has been there for a long time and he does a great job with that football team,” Phelps said. “They are a wing-T offense and use a lot of misdirection. Their running backs always do a good job and they have very athletic offensive linemen that can pull, trap and run the counters.”

Westlake vs. Crowley

Westlake also hits the road as it faces former district foe Crowley (1-0).

“Crowley is a very talented team,” said head coach Shawn Demeritt. “The running back (Ty’Von Griffin) is a horse. He is about 6-foot, 215 pounds and everything seems to really go through him. The quarterback (Pate Broussard) runs the offense really well and they have (Terrell Thomas) who is a big playmaker at both offense and safety.

“We are going to have some really big challenges.”

The Rams nearly upset DeRidder in Week 1, losing 23-20 to the Dragons, who are ranked No. 6 Class 4A.

“We had a lot of positives, we just made too many mistakes in the end,” Demeritt said. “We fought hard for four quarters. We tell the kids to get better every day and every week and we think we did that.”

Junior quarterback Hunter Racca threw for 160 yards and all three Westlake touchdowns.

Iowa vs.

Woodlawn-Shreveport

In Iowa, the Yellow Jackets return home to host Woodlawn-Shreveport (0-1) after a Week 1 trip to Erath where they escaped with a 20-3 victory after a slow start.

Quarterback Koby Buquet completed 13 off 22 passes for 145 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Both scores were caught by receiver Andre Sam.

But it was the Yellow Jackets defense that shined, holding the Bobcats to 182 yards of total offense.

“Our defense had four turnovers, one of which went back for a touchdown, and that is always a positive,” Iowa head coach Sean Richard said. “We tackled well and held the other team to just a field goal when they had already gotten a short field anyway.”

They will need more of that defensive prowess in this week’s meeting with the Golden Knights.

“They have a big-play offense; their quarterback is really good,” Richard said. “We are going to have to be very good in the secondary, which I think will be the key to our success this week against a good spread offense.”

St. Louis (0-1) will be in action tonight when they host Abbeville (0-1) while Iota (0-1) travels to St. Edmund (0-1) on Friday.(Rick Hickman/American Press)