The Acadiana Wreckin’ Rams win on Saturday night was the last time quarterback Keontae Williams and running back Dillan Monette would take the field together.
They made the most of it, connecting on the Rams only touchdown of the game for a 56-yard reception in the first quarter.
For those two seniors, the state championship means more than just a trophy.
“It means a lot because we’ve worked for four years,” Monette says. “We work three to four years to get to this moment. Now I can say my senior year of high school, me and my teammates went undefeated, untamed. We won a ring together.”
“It’s a lot longer than 15 weeks,” Williams says. “After this it’s like dang. It’s done. We did it. 15-0. We reached our goal.”
It’s a goal the two teammates have been dreaming of for more than just a few weeks, after coming up short of a state title the last 4 years.
“The past few years we’ve had great teams, and we just couldn’t finish,” Monette says. “This team, we finished it.”
“We’ve been talking about it since the summer, how last year didn’t go the way we wanted it to go,” Williams says. “This year was our year. We finally did it. It feels great.”
Earlier in the season, Monette etched his name in the Rams record books, breaking the record for most career rushing yards. After rushing for 153 yards on 21 carries, Monette was injured late in the game.
The pain was no match for the rush of adrenaline the Army football commit felt after the clock struck 0:00, and the Rams secured the championship.
“We got the ring, and I know one thing, this is a feeling I cannot describe,” Monette says. “I don’t feel pain right now. I feel joy. My joy is greater than the pain I’m feeling right now. I’m just so happy for our team and our coaching staff. They say trust the process. We trusted it. We followed what they told us to do. Great things happened. I’m grateful.”
“We were highly doubted because we were small,” Williams says. “When you’re small, when you’re a smaller team, you have to be really technical. In practice, Coach gets on us a lot. It’s the little things that make a big difference. Whew. It feels good. It feels great.”
Their senior leadership helped bring Acadiana it’s fifth state title in program history and the first for second-year head coach Matt McCullough.
