BOGALUSA, La. — Bogalusa returns 18 starters from a 2021 team that finished 7-3 with a second-round loss to Lutcher in the Class 3A playoffs.
A season the Jacks found success and a renewed interest in the football program.
“Young men, they want to be associated with winners and we had a decent season. Didn’t end the way we wanted it to end but it was something to build upon and I think there’s a lot of enthusiasm and we’re just going to take it one game at a time,” says Bogalusa head football coach Cyril Crutchfield.
Bogalusa returns 9 starters on offense, including junior quarterback Ashton Levi, who last year threw for 2,900 yards and 31 touchdowns and added 700 yards and 14 scores on the ground.
Levi was named the District 8-3A Offensive MVP.
“That offseason I took into consideration to work on my speed a little bit more. I always had like a big arm, but I’ve never had the biggest arm. So, I worked on my arm. I worked on my speed and then last season it showed,” says Bogalusa junior quarterback Ashton Levi.
“He’s grown by leaps and bounds, game by game, and the best is yet to come. He still has two full years to go, and we expect big things out of him. He’s a leader and he has that it factor, that attitude that the game is not over until it’s over. He commands respect and he leads by example,” says Crutchfield.
So do the 9 experienced starters returning on defense, a unit with a talented secondary and a senior leading the Lumberjacks’ front seven.
“It starts with our quarterback of the defense, Keshawn Manning. He’s our signal caller. He sets the defense. He’s going to make plays on that mid-level. On the back end, we’ve got some guys that are capable. We have some young guys, Lance Jackson, we have Ayden Magee playing in the secondary. It has to be a total effort on everyone’s part to play fast, play fundamentally sound and make things happen on defense,” says Crutchfield.
Head coach Cyril Crutchfield says his team’s growth and game-by-game approach will help the Bogalusa football program take that next step.
The Jacks open the 2022 season against Franklinton.
The 31st edition of WGNO’s Friday Night Football, presented by the Allstate Sugar Bowl, returns Friday, August 19th.
You can catch all of the action on Friday Nights at 11 p.m. on Nola 38 the CW and again at midnight on WGNO.
