Shaw ended the regular season by winning one of the wilder games Hank Tierney has been a part of in his 36 seasons as a head football coach. That was more than a week ago, when junior Mason Wilson accounted for five touchdowns in a 57-50 victory against Class 5A state-ranked Carencro.
Now, after a first-round playoff bye awarded to the top-eight seeds in the playoffs, the fifth-seeded Eagles (8-2) will face No. 12 Evangel Christian (7-4) — a 14-time state title winner — in an LHSAA Division II select regional set for 7 p.m. Friday at Shaw’s Joe Zimmerman Stadium.
Shaw coach Hank Tierney went to Shreveport and saw Evangel defeat Belaire 49-0 last week.
“It was like I went back 20 years in time,” Tierney said. “Same uniforms, throwing the ball all over the place. The quarterback is (former LSU quarterback) Josh Booty’s son. His twin is the No. 1 receiver. They’re both real good players.”
Booty quarterbacked Evangel to a Class 1A state title in 1993, the first of those 14 state championships. His two sons are Peyton and Parker Fulghum. Peyton plays quarterback. Parker is a wideout. Both are seniors.
Evangel’s Peyton Fulghum carries the ball Friday, Oct. 13, 2023, at Evangel Christian Academy in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Tierney coached three games against Evangel during his first Shaw stint, losing the first game in Shreveport in 1996 before scoring an upset to start the 2000 season at the Superdome. That win snapped a 60-game winning streak for Evangel.
Shaw lost to Evangel 33-31 in the 2001 playoffs in what turned out to be the last game Tierney coached for Shaw until he returned to the school in 2022 after a 21-year absence.
This is the second year for Shaw in the Division II bracket after the school opted not to play up in Class 5A and in the Catholic League.
Seeded No. 7 last year, Shaw defeated No. 10 Livingston 42-6 in a bidistrict game and lost a quarterfinal the next week against No. 2 Teurlings Catholic 27-21.
Evangel will travel far to play a regional game for the second year in a row. Seeded No. 13 last year, Evangel lost to No. 4 E.D. White 32-29. The close score on the road could be indicative of the kind of game Shaw will get this season.
The winner this week will face the second-round winner between No. 4 Kennedy and No. 13 Vandebilt Catholic.
Evangel has a resurgent football program under coach Denny Duron. Evangel scored 40 points or more in all seven wins this season. Two of the four losses came against teams with top-two playoffs seeds North DeSoto (No. 1, Division II nonselect) and Neville (No. 2, Division I nonselect).
The one in-state loss for Shaw came against two-time reigning Division III select state champion St. Charles, now a No. 1 seed in that bracket. Shaw started the season 0-2 with a loss at The Kinkaid School in Houston. Shaw has won eight games in a row since then.
The latest win against Carencro was “one of the craziest games I’ve been involved in, and I’ve been involved in a lot of them,” said Tierney, the winner of 317 games in his career.
Shaw trailed three times in that game, led by two touchdowns late and still had to hang on for the victory.
“That said a lot for our kids,” said Tierney, whose team has another chance to make a statement this week.
