Pope John Paul II’s Jaguars open the season tonight with a game against St. Patrick Catholic High School Fighting Irish, located on the border of Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss.

PJP is coming off a 22-0 jamboree loss to Newman, while St. Patrick opened its regular season with a 28-7 victory over Pass Christian.

Jaguars coach Mark Jeanmard said it’s essential to start the season off on the right track.

Tyler Bolner

“The challenge for us is that our first two games are two of our tougher opponents (St. John next week),” Jeanmard said. “We have to improve from the last two weeks (scrimmage and jamboree). Playing the opener at home is exciting.”

St. Patrick is in its third year of existence. Two Mississippi rivals St. John of Gulfport and Mercy Cross of Biloxi combined to form the school. Their roster consists of 55 players. St. Patrick’s coach is Rocky Gaudin, who enters his 32nd year of coaching. Gaudin, also the athletic director, was the defensive coordinator at Hancock North Central High when Minnesota Vikings’ quarterback Brett Favre attended the school.

Jaguars’ coach Mark Jeanmard said when they scheduled this game, they were trying to have a playoff atmosphere and something that could turn into a rivalry.

The Jaguars run a double-wing offense with Clyde Perkins at quarterback. The running backs are Tyler Lusignan, Carlo Conforto, Ryan Cosse and Kyle Canulette. Zach Goodnow is the wingback.

Last week, Lusignan returned a kickoff 30 yards and finished with several good runs.

Defensively, the Fighting Irish runs the 50.

Coach Gaudin said they try to play sound. He has seven or eight guys that play both ways for him. He said that last week, end Taylor Gundlath played well. He also said his secondary, which includes Dylan Herring, Matt Lively, Ben Whitesides and Jack Healy also did good for St. Patrick.

Offensively, the Fighting Irish runs the wing-T. Whitesides will likely get the start, but junior Peyton Latand will see time.

St. Patrick’s running backs are by committee. Herring and Healy are the running backs, while Gundlath along with Garrett Reeder play fullback.

Gaudin said Herring is quick and runs hard and Healy has good speed. He also said that Gundlath is a smaller and quicker type fullback.

One player to keep an eye on is wingback Lively (6-foot, 180 pounds). He can play running back, wide receiver and can block. Gaudin said they try to get Lively the ball as much as possible. Defensively, PJP bases out of the 4-4.

The unit struggled to stop Newman’s spread offense last week. One big help for PJP this week’s game is the return of senior linebacker Tyler Bolner to the lineup.

Last year, Bolner was a second-team all-district player for PJP.