The Colonels survive a scare tonight. They looked sloppy all night besides the first four minutes, One thing OC needs to work on is penalties, there seemed to be an absolute ton of penalties on Oldham tonight. They better fix those problems fast because they got a tough one next week when they head to one of the oldest stadiums in Louisville to play the Manual Crimsons. Should be a good one next week.

Oldham weathered the storm against an old rival in Shelby County. Credit Todd Shipley and company for a great game plan; the Rockets weren't about to go quietly into the night despite being the underdogs. Not only did the Rockets rally from a two TD deficit twice (14-0 and 28-14), they defensively did a great job on Oldham's talented tailback, Juan Tapia, holding the Colonels' leading rusher to more 100 yards below his per game average.

 

The Rockets made some big plays out of the option and gave themselves every chance to win; kudos to the Colonels for waking their offense from a second-half slumber for one final drive that resulted in the final winning field goal.

 

Special story of the night was the young man who made the field goal. Senior Khaled Al Asad kicked his first-ever field goal for the Colonels, a 33 yarder that won the game in the final minute. (no pressure....LOL) Al Asad, in his first year as the Colonels' placekicker, is also a member of the Oldham County band. At halftime, he was still on the field - this time as one of the OCHS Band field commanders. Furthermore, Al Asad is an accomplished clarinet player...talented enough that he may miss a football game this year to compete in a national music competition. We're not talking "good"....we're talking world-class talent for his age.

 

Despite the uneven performance offensively, Oldham put together enough big plays to hold off the Rockets and give Al Asad the opportunity to win it. Sophomore QB Sam Young got the game going with a 49 yard TD run on the Colonels' first possession of the game. In the end, he wound up accounting for three of the Colonels' touchdowns, running for a score and passing for two others, a short pass to Gabe Vance and an impressive 28 yarder to Parker Caudill - a pass in which Young led Caudill over the middle, and Caudill outsprinted two Shelby defenders to get to the ball and get the touchdown.

 

Congrats to Oldham for the gritty win, but the Colonels will have to raise their game another level in order to be competitive the next three weeks as they face three consecutive top 10 teams: Manual, South Oldham, and Fern Creek. All three games are on the road. The Colonels can't afford the penalties they amassed against Shelby.

 

CM

Awesome post. Sounds like a great game. Congrats to the multi talented kicker.