Barbe entered Friday’s game against Acadiana with revenge on its mind.

Last season the Rams, the defending Class 5A state champions, beat the Bucs in both the regular season and the playoffs.

Mission accomplished.

Barbe (3-2, 1-1) went outside of its comfort zone — a bang-bang, hyper-speed spread offense — to upset eighth-ranked Acadiana (2-3, 1-1) 17-14 and get back on track after a rough two weeks.

In beating Acadiana, Barbe not only avenged last season’s losses to Acadiana but avoided its first three-game losing streak since 1999.

By the Bucs’ standards they dirtied up the game and beat Acadiana at its own game — ball control. The Bucs held the ball for nearly 30 minutes Friday night and ran the ball 49 times for 230 yards.

In doing that, Barbe’s defense played disciplined football against Acadiana’s ballyhooed veer offense to 148 total yards and eight first downs.

“The coaches did a good job of calling the game offensively and defensively and the kids responded well,” Barbe coach Mike Cutrera said. “They understood what we wanted to do and they went out and executed.”

Kirkland Banks led the rushing effort, carrying the ball 25 times for a game-high 120 yards.

“I thought our offense did an incredible job tonight,” senior linebacker Khoury Kraus said. “That helped (our defense) because in previous weeks we’d have to get on the field all the time. We weren’t tired when we were on the field. They kept us up and we kept them up at the same time.”

Execution had a healthy dose of good fortune mixed with it. The Bucs got four of their 19 first downs by Acadiana penalties, three of them on third or fourth down to extend drives. Barbe also got a safety in the second quarter when a high snap on a punt went through the back of the end zone to give it a 9-0 lead.

None of those breaks were bigger than a roughing-the-kicker penalty on a fourth-down play in the fourth quarter. That call allowed Barbe to extend a drive that started at the 7:08 mark in the fourth quarter until it gave up the ball on downs with 1:19 left in the game.

It was then Barbe’s defense that rose to the occasion, forcing a fumble in the game’s final minute to seal the win.

“That fumble recovery in the last seconds, that hit my heart,” Kraus said.

The Bucs controlled the game wire to wire but never pulled away. They struck first in the first quarter when quarterback Gavin Nettles rolled left and threw the ball the opposite direction to a crossing Banks, who took it 19 yards to give Barbe a 7-0 lead early on.

Nettles bounced back from a three-interception game last week to complete 13 of 20 passes for 106 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.

“He’s starting to grow up,” Cutrera said. “He’s only a sophomore but he competes, that’s the main thing. He’s competing and he’s starting to see (the game) a little more.”

The bulk of those yards came on a response drive in the third quarter. After Donovan Soloman raced 34 yards to give Acadiana a 14-9 lead, Barbe scored in its next series.

On the drive, Nettles completed a pair of shuttle passes to receiver Garret Williams. The first, a 39-yarder, set up the 12-yard touchdown on an identical look two plays later.

“This effort started last Saturday when we knew we had Acadiana and we knew it was time to get after it,” Kraus said. “We got together as a team and got fired up. Everybody did their assignments and I couldn’t ask for anything else out of my teammates.”(Rick Hickman/American Press)