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| Another Week of NKY Football in the Books! Here's What Happened. |
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| Bryan Burke - The River City News |
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Another exciting week of Northern Kentucky high school football action is behind us and what a bunch of games we saw on Friday!
Covington Catholic finally picked up a win by giving Beechwood its first loss, and Highlands continued its skid while Scott rallied to rout Holy Cross, and Holmes blew by Bellevue. Simon Kenton continued to flex its muscles, too.
Here is the round-up from Friday's games:
Scott 56, Holy Cross 39
Both the Eagles and the Indians entered Friday's match-up in Covington after losing for the first time last week. Both teams started slowly, punting on their first possessions and then Scott fumbled on its second try resulting in a Holy Cross field goal.
The Indians held a slim lead at the half, 22-16.
Then there was a flurry of scoring in the second half that saw the lead change hands multiple times. Roberto London put up three touchdowns for Scott, including the team's first of the game, but Holy Cross answered that one with a 70-yard passing touchdown by Jaylin Williams.
After three quarters, they were tied.
Then Scott lit up Holy Cross in the 4th. The Eagles outscored the Indians 24-7 in the game's final quarter and sealed the victory. London rushed for 177 yards with his three touchdowns.
Scott is now 4-1 on the season and will face a winless Mason Co. team next week while Holy Cross drops to 2-2 and hopes to end its losing streak when the Indians travel to Ft. Mitchell next week to face Beechwood.
Covington Catholic 41, Beechwood 21
Covington Catholic got off the schneid in a big way on Friday night when they traveled a little over a mile south on Dixie Highway and handled Beechwood easily, 41-21.
It was not only the first win for a 1-4 Colonels team, it was also a bit of payback from a season ago when Beechwood took care of business at Cov Cath and came out on top by being the tougher and more physical team. This time, however, it was CCH that won in the trenches which translated to winning on the scoreboard.
“Our guys up front is a senior group for the most part. We like to ride that as much as possible and they played well tonight and executed. We’re starting to gel,” said first-year head coach Eddie Eviston.
His road has started off as quite the struggle, as his team dropped its first four, but Eviston likes the direction his team is heading as it enters midseason.
“Everything is new, so going through this summer then going through several games we’re starting to get there and we’re starting to execute better. A lot of that is because we’re new,” he said.
Early on, it looked like it might be a back-and-forth game as both teams scored touchdowns on their respective opening drives. For Beechwood, it was tailback Ethan Stringer, shifting his way to a 37-yard field goal. For CovCath, it was wide out Ryan McGinness who took a 4-yard outside run to tie the score.
From there, though, the Colonels toughened up on the line on both on offense and defense and established supremacy up front. They were able to tip the scales their way with a lot of short passes outside the hash marks and end arounds that capitalized on their speedy and small wide outs. On three consecutive possessions, the Colonels scored touchdowns and in between those scores, forced Beechwood into three straight punts.
As the half wound down, the Tigers put together one of their better drives, taking the ball to the 2-yard line on fourth-and-goal, but when what at first looked like a touchdown catch in the corner turned out to be incomplete when the ball squirted out once the player went to the ground, their hopes were dashed and there would no more scoring in the first half with the score, 28-7 Colonels.
The second half didn’t start much better for Beechwood as McGinness scored on a pass that went through a defensive players hands and landed into McGinness’ hands. Once he caught it, he sprinted into the endzone on a 41-yard touchdown pass from sophomore quarterback A.J. Mayer in a play that exemplified the night for both teams.
While Mayer did throw for a touchdown, he was not asked to pass much for the Colonels and the whole team focused on the run.
The approach allowed the Colonels to control the game and the clock as they held the Tigers at bay through the third quarter. After McGinness scored again and put his team up 34-7, it looked like it might be the end for Beechwood’s night, but then they found a spark that let them climb back into it some.
The first bright Beechwood spot came when Aiden Justice scored on a tough run after catching a 17-yard pass and then again in the fourth quarter when Justice caught a 36-yard catch for the touchdown. After his second TD, Beechwood cut the lead to 20 points, but that lead became irrelevant after the Colonels went in again after a thorough drive capped off by a goal-line run from the one.
After the game, Eviston told his team that he thought it was the best week of practice the team has had and felt like it was a big reason why the team pulled off its first win.
“Part of me thinks that there is a mental approach to things. It shouldn’t matter who is on our schedule and that’s something that we have to fix. Our guys had a better approach to practice and we just executed more,” the Colonels coach said.
When asked if breaking the seal to a win has lifted a burden from his players’ shoulders, he agreed.
“A little bit,” he said. “They’ve been trying to get that win. The whole new coaching staff is also trying to get that win to try and get this thing going.”
The schedule has been a brutal one for the Colonels and it gets no easier moving forward. Next up, Cov Cath hosts St. Francis de Sales (OH). Beechwood (3-1) looks to get back to its winning ways next week when Holy Cross comes to town.
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| For more, read the full article at The River City News |
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Wednesday, Nov 20 