Lexington Catholic High School will be hosting the 14th annual Bluegrass Bowl on August 30th, 2008 featuring outstanding high school programs from Kentucky and Indiana.

 

The opening 5:30 p.m. game will feature the Class 1A Hazard Bulldogs taking on the Class 2A Green County Dragons. Coach Mike Dixon has 11 starters returning from a team that went to the KHSAA Gridiron Semifinals last year, including quarterback Tyler Olinger. Olinger passed for over 3,000 yards and ran for over 1,000 yards during last year’s 13-1 run.

 

Green County was undefeated during the regular season in 2007 and is poised to make another strong run in 2008 with 9 starters returning under Coach Mike Griffiths. The Dragons backfield includes senior quarterback Justin Pendleton and senior wide receiver Zeth Rogers; they teamed up for over 3,000 yards of offense in 2007.

 

The 8:30 p.m. game will feature the 2007 KHSAA Class 4A Gridiron Champions, Lexington Catholic Knights taking on the Bishop Chatard Trojans, the 2007 ISHAA Class 3A State Champions from Indianapolis, Indiana. Coach Bill Letton’s Lexington Catholic Knights return to the field after a 13-2 championship season last year. The Knights attack will again be lead by junior quarterback Nic Ward, who completed 63 percent of his passes in 2007. Senior receivers Devon Williams and Daniel Vogelsang will likely be favorite targets of Ward in the Knights west-coast style offensive attack.

 

Bishop Chatard has won nine Indiana state championships since 1983, including championships the last 3 years. Coach Vincent Lorenzo’s offensive attack is lead by 3 seniors – quarterback Rob Doyle, wide receiver Kyle Dietrick and running back Zac Burton. Bishop Chatard senior lineman Zach Martin (6-5, 275 lbs.) just recently announced his commitment to play his college football at Notre Dame.

 

The format of the event has also been expanded this year to include a full session of Middle School games that will showcase Kentucky’s next generation football players. At 9:30 a.m., Lexington Catholic Middle School Knights will host Lexington Christian Academy Eagles in a 7th grade game. The first of two 8th grade games will kickoff at 11:30 a.m. with Lexington Christian Academy Eagles taking on the Moss Middle School Dragons of Warren County. At 1:30 p.m., Lexington Catholic Middle School Knights will host the Bowling Green Junior High School Purples.

Cool to see that the middle schools are getting in on the fun this year. Having grown up in this program, starting at the middle school level, it was always fun to get to play on the high school field. Course, I was at the middle school level when Lex Cath still had grass, and that new gym was still just our practice field for high school, and game field for middle school.

 

I do like seeing that the school has gone out and gotten some teams from out of state to play against just to give a little flavor to this event.

Chatard is a great program. Kudos to the Knights for going out and getting a great matchup in this one.

 

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