Wheels start falling off in the 4th. Too many missed opportunities and not enough bodies for the boys in white. Royals showed great effort and played with heart tonight!

Congrats to the Royals. Played a great game and ran out of gas Ashland was lucky to pull away with the W.

Story of the season for the Royals. Improved over last season, but not enough bodies to hold up for a full 48 minutes.

No doubt that Mason has a good bunch of players, just not enough of them. Their opening drive ball control strategy was a good move. They were literally running the play clock down to 1 second before snapping it each time. I thought they should have stayed with it.

 

Ashland's Braxton Ratliff has proved to be a really good QB. He will have a few plays a game where you wonder why he didn't get rid of the ball, but he will have an equal number of plays where he escapes like Houdini to make a positive play out of nothing.

 

Overall, glad to see Ashland move on. I hope they can earn a rematch in Paintsville with Johnson Central.

I am proud of Coach Thomas, his staff, and the players. They have fought hard this season and did make substantial improvement.

 

Congrats to the Tomcats.

 

I always enjoyed our games at Putnam. Great stadium & tradition!

ChiefSmoke...What are your suggestions on how to get players out for the program? I don't see it getting any better? And Mason County just won't be able to compete at the Class 4 level without more bodies?

ChiefSmoke...What are your suggestions on how to get players out for the program? I don't see it getting any better? And Mason County just won't be able to compete at the Class 4 level without more bodies?

 

It is a thin cycle of kids. We had our feeder programs, youth camps, recruit night, etc. in place. And, Coach Thomas and his staff have been more aggressive in getting kids out. Recruit night use to be just for incoming frosh. He made it for the entire school. We bought black jerseys when I was there. Coach Thomas added the black pants & helmets, trying to get kids out & excited.

 

And, most schools are struggling with numbers. Kids have alot more choices and most of those choices are much easier than football.

 

In my 19 years, we had spurts with low numbers. It happens and it will cycle back.

 

Good luck to the Tomcats this week!