Beechwood Tigers (13-1) vs. Owensboro Catholic Aces (14-0) December 6 at Kroger Field Lexington, Kickoff at 4 PM

It was a four team race all year in most people's eyes and now we have two of those four facing off for the 2A title. Owensboro Catholic was the runner up in last year's 2A title game, losing a 53-48 slugfest to the Mayfield Cardinals. Beechwood also ended their season last year with a loss to Mayfield, with the Cardinals squeaking past the Tigers 31-28 in the semifinals. The Tigers and Aces will be looking to turn that last game of the year in 2024 into a W instead of an L.

These two teams feature powerful offenses led by senior QB's who have arguably each been among the 5 best QB's in the entire state the past couple years. The Aces' Brady Atwell and the Tigers' Clay Hayden are setting records at their schools and in the entire state. With tonight's semi finals results, Beechwood moved past Owensboro Catholic in team scoring in the entire state. Beechwood is #2 in the state with 655 points and Owensboro Catholic is #3 in the state with 642 points. Entering the semi finals games, both Hayden and Atwell had 44 TD passes and 5 INT's. Two historic QB's will be leading the offenses in this game.

But it takes more than one star to get a team to a championship games. Owensboro Catholic features the leading WR in 2A, Sr Warren Ebelhar. Ebelhar has over 1,000 yards receiving averaging 22 yards a catch and scoring 12 TD's. Beechwood counters that with a platoon of super fast WR in state sprint champions Luke Erdman, James Cusick and Nathan Pabst along with So Tyler Fryman, who holds  D1 baseball scholarship offer from Louisville. Pick your poison. All four of these receivers are a TD threat any time they touch the ball in open space.

The team rushing stats entering the semifinals games were almost identical, with both teams sitting right at 2,000 rushing yards on the season. But the way each team gets those yards is very different. QB Atwell is the second leading rusher for the Aces while Beechwood QB Hayden has rarely run the ball over the past two season. Sr. Chase Flaherty has been the Beechwood rushing attack this season with about 1,400 yards rushing on the season. Flaherty left Beechwood's semi final game in the first half but So. Nathan Pabst moved from WR to RB and promptly scored on TD runs of 62 yards and 28 yards.

This game shapes up as a possible repeat of last year's 101 point outburst. How do you see this matchup playing out?

Everyone keeps talking about Beechwood will have to shut down OC’s offense o think it’s the way around! In my 40 plus years of watching Beechwood football I have never seen a Beechwood team with this much speed and so many weapons. It will e one heck of a game! 

Go get #18 fellas!!! Go TIGERS!!! ? 

It's Beechwood, and I'm not sure it will be that close. No disrespect to OC, but they have not seen the speed they are going to see next Friday.

25 minutes ago, GBR said:

It's Beechwood, and I'm not sure it will be that close. No disrespect to OC, but they have not seen the speed they are going to see next Friday.

I said the same thing about LCA! 

Both these teams have good Quarterbacks but Beechwood has more athletes on their team. That is going to be the difference. OC has played a fairly easy schedule, if they get behind how will they react? I see a 2 to 3 td victory for Beechwood. 

48 minutes ago, GBR said:

It's Beechwood, and I'm not sure it will be that close. No disrespect to OC, but they have not seen the speed they are going to see next Friday.

I hope you’re right!

Beechwood is a machine and will be very difficult to slow down.

But I'm pulling for the Aces to get their first ever State Championship!

I’m going with Beechwood, obviously. By how much? I’m not sure. I haven’t seen OC play. I know this game will have 2 of the best QBs in the state and I’m excited. OC has a good WR but haven’t heard much else. I know OC QB runs a lot which scares me but it also scared me when I read LCA runs the ball 85% of the time, but we all saw how that turned out last night. 
 

I'm thinking beechwood will be too fast and have too many threats for OC. You simply can’t guard them all. I hope Chase is ok, not just because we need him and he’s a workhorse but it’s his senior year, hate to see it!  
 

I think it was the 3rd Qtr last night, Clay Hayden was rolling right and threw it off 1 foot 50 yards in the air to Luke Erdman. Incredible throw and super impressive for a high school quarterback I think the next play was a 34 yard strike to Erdman in the endzone.

11 hours ago, Jason Bucklen said:

Everyone keeps talking about Beechwood will have to shut down OC’s offense o think it’s the way around! In my 40 plus years of watching Beechwood football I have never seen a Beechwood team with this much speed and so many weapons. It will e one heck of a game! 

I meant other way around. I could be wrong but it will be hard for OC to cover all of Beechwood’s weapons! Plus Hayden can scramble as well! 

5 minutes ago, RememberTheTigers24 said:

I’m going with Beechwood, obviously. By how much? I’m not sure. I haven’t seen OC play. I know this game will have 2 of the best QBs in the state and I’m excited. OC has a good WR but haven’t heard much else. I know OC QB runs a lot which scares me but it also scared me when I read LCA runs the ball 85% of the time, but we all saw how that turned out last night. 
 

I'm thinking beechwood will be too fast and have too many threats for OC. You simply can’t guard them all. I hope Chase is ok, not just because we need him and he’s a workhorse but it’s his senior year, hate to see it!  
 

I think it was the 3rd Qtr last night, Clay Hayden was rolling right and threw it off 1 foot 50 yards in the air to Luke Erdman. Incredible throw and super impressive for a high school quarterback I think the next play was a 34 yard strike to Erdman in the endzone.

I saw that play on X last night! That was one hell of a throw! 

That is some serious speed! 

Both teams have some injury issues it seems. 
 

Beechwood RB left the game early in the game.

 

Catholic Carrico has been out since 2nd round. Notice a couple other players left the game. Hope they play. 
 

With all that being said. If I’m Beechwood I would not sleep on Catholic’s speed. If you think Beechwood are the only ones with speed your crazy. Deron Crowe, Ebelhar, Edge, Atwell, Cam

2 minutes ago, TimeWillTell said:

Both teams have some injury issues it seems. 
 

Beechwood RB left the game early in the game.

 

Catholic Carrico has been out since 2nd round. Notice a couple other players left the game. Hope they play. 
 

With all that being said. If I’m Beechwood I would not sleep on Catholic’s speed. If you think Beechwood are the only ones with speed your crazy. Deron Crowe, Ebelhar, Edge, Atwell, Cam

Maybe so we will find out next week. As I said in my 40 plus years of watching Beechwood football I have never seen a Beechwood team with this much speed and so many weapons! 

Respectfully ... we need to put a lid on all the "O Cath hasn't seen the speed of Beechwood" or "O Cath hasn't seen a team with as much speed"

O Cath is 14-0 playing in another state championship game. That doesn't happen by accident. (I remember a similar line of discussion in 2009/2010/2011 ... in relation to a team in Red and Black).

We have the two best teams playing for a State Championship. Neither team is going to blink. High hopes for a clean, injury-free game.