TDL: Two-A-Days - Basile Bearcats

Basile, LA (KPLC) - The Basile Bearcats were just one point away from an undefeated district record in 2020 before falling short of the quarterfinal round of the playoffs for just the second time in nine seasons.

Despite a less than desirable year, the Bearcats return many key pieces on both sides of the ball and will use last season as motivation.

“Everybody has been giving it their all. I’m proud of what I’ve been seeing,” said offensive lineman Anphrony Guillory. “We are a pretty strong team and we look like we are going to go far.”

Offensively, Basile will continue with the veer aiming to use a strong committee of backs. A trio of the Bearcats six returning starters hail from the backfield.

“It starts with your running backs,” said head coach Kevin Bertrand. “We have 3 of our running backs returning from last year in Ethan Bazinette, Horace Edwards and Ashton Deaville.”

The Bearcats will also need to rely on their offensive line which is a mixed bag of experience. Seniors Gabe Fontenot and Anphrony Guillory will have to help coach up the younger guys.

“This year there are only two seniors on the line, our center is a junior and we have two young guards any my job is to make sure they learn the offense,” said Fontenot. “They’re picking it up fast. They are fast learners.”

Basile will lineup in a 3-4 defense and are returning a plethora of experience, especially in its linebacking corps.

“It starts with our linebackers in Horace Edwards and Baylor McCoy who are some really experienced guys,” Bertrand said. “And our outside backers we call them strong safeties,  Matt Francois and Ashton Deaville, they really solidify our edges so, it’s just a matter of being comfortable with what we do and being able to expand on it because they have experience.”

Experience aside, the Bearcats are focused on keeping their lofty goals grounded each week.

“We just want to win that week. We want to be undefeated, that week. We don’t want to start putting too many things too far ahead,” said Bertrand. “We really want to concentrate on what we are doing that week and that’s always been our talking point. We want to be undefeated this week. we are not worried about last week, we are not worried about next week, we want to be undefeated this week.”

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