Emotions, Success Defining BCHS Year
BOBBY ARDOIN
St. Landry Now.com Editor
(Photos By Freddie Herpin)
Although half the 2026 season remains, it might still be difficult to provide proper context for what has already occurred within the Beau Chene football program.
There’s obviously the encouragement attached to a 4-0 start, the first time Beau Chene has won four games to start the year since 2016.
While enjoying that initial success, the team has also experienced recent internal tragedy, as 17-year-old junior starter Santiago Solis died last week at a Lafayette hospital following an accident.
Funeral services were held Saturday in Leonville for Soils, a defensive end and offensive lineman, who always commanded the leadership and locker room respect needed on teams with winning records, according to head coach Buck Harris.
Harris, in his third season as the Beau Chene head football coach, said it’s been an emotional first-month-of-the-season experience for the coaching staff and players who are feeling the joy of being one of only two St. Landry Parish football teams that are currently undefeated.
“It feels good to be where we are right now and we have been discussing with our players that it’s also necessary for them to hold in their emotions about all that has happened. So far I give our players credit for standing strong,” Harris said.
Beau Chene defeated Helix Mentorship Academy 53-36 last Friday in a Homecoming game that also provided tributes for Solis, who also played soccer.
“Just before the start of the third quarter, right after halftime, they lit 56 fireworks in memory of Santiago. Then for the coin toss before the game, the team captains carried his number 56 jersey with them onto the field,” Harris added.
The Gators travel to play East Beauregard this week for a last game before the start of the district schedule.
In 2016 Beau Chene was 5-0 after beginning 2015 4-1. The following season the Gators were 4-1 at the midway point after losing the first game of the year.
The Gators have recorded 1-9 records consecutively since 2022 after finishing the 2021 regular season 6-4.
Harris said the Gators have a more experienced roster this year, with players who sustained the experiences from their previous seasons when Beau Chene was attempting to reconstitute its focus.
“The dedication of these guys, the older players, who have stuck it through and put up the effort during the offseason and in the weight room, that is something that carried over. We are getting more in the stands and we were nearly full for Homecoming,” Harris pointed out.
Many of the players, said Harris, are looking back at the previous seasons and seeing that being undefeated right now is a result of the work they have put in for the past four years.
Solis, Harris said, was one of those players who remembered his years helping to rebrand football at the school.
“Santiago was a starter both ways and he played a lot as a freshman. His main contribution has been as a team leader. He is one of those guys who when he talked, everyone was going to listen,” Harris added.
Harris said he players are also competing in a more disciplined manner and that will be beneficial when the Gators start a tough district schedule that begins in two weeks against Livonia for a Thursday night contest.
“We’ve been talking to our players a lot lately about competing and what it takes to compress your emotions. Those discussions,I think have prepared our players for the way they have been competing this season,” said Harris.
