papagrit

This game is in a lightning delay after only a couple of minutes. Rockcastle received the ball and drove from their own 15 to the MadSo. 45 before the stoppage.

Someone did a really nice job getting those boys set up for their ceremony. Congratulations to all three! Best of luck at the next level!

I always used to crack up at EKU games when their student section used to chant "Let's go.....Let's go Peay!".

If Perry is the man....Congrats to Garrard County. You've hit a relative homerun in football so to speak.

Good luck to the boy. I hope things continue to work well for him and his final decision on a college becomes clear to him as he continues his high school career.

Here is the picture of the signing/commitment ceremony that took place at Rockcastle County today. On the left is Jared Lake who is going to Washington University in St. Louis and the kid on the right is Corey McPhetridge who signed with U Pike. Proud of both boys! The picture must have clipped when it uploaded, but, the coaching staff was on the right.

Thank you sir. I'd say it is pretty obvious that I'm pretty proud of both of them.

About the same situation as my youngest son. Now...I don't know how much the head coach turned off some of the schools when they called to ask questions and he knew my son was going into engineering. He did start getting more attention after the season was over with phone calls from Centre and few others, but, he was already applied early decision to the school that he wound up going to. He then had to tell those late calling coaches that if he was accepted there it was legally binding because he had applied early decision. He got way far more calls from coaches out of state before he received any from in state. Coaches called during the season from McCallister College in Minneapolis, Bowdoin in Maine, Case Western Reserve in Cleveland and Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh before he got a call from anybody in Kentucky.

I only knew of Brown....that is VERY interesting. The boys head high school coach looked for their interest and told them he would help them any way he could as far as getting recruited by them. But the boys wanted to go into a direct engineering program, one mechanical and the other chemical which limited their choices by quite a margin. To be honest, neither kid is DI BCS size for linemen nor had the speed. That is where most of the engineering schools are. Things worked out pretty well though. Thanks for the kind words GF2. Best of luck to your boy at Wofford. I hope things turn out well for him in his academic and athletic pursuits. I hear that "Boss" Boston Bryant from Whitley Co. is tearing it up down there at Wofford! Conference defensive freshman of the year maybe? I actually looked hard at the school and checked out their history as well. Very interesting history, especially during the Civil War when the College invested in the Confederacy and about went belly up. Methodist roots I believe and they kept it solvent. I looked into several universities like that and I'm a history buff.

Wofford does indeed recruit heavily in Kentucky. They recruited both of my sons. I feel that in some ways this is due to the fact that ShadDon Brown, an assistant coach on that team has possibly opened some pathways this direction into Kentucky. Coach Brown knew our head coach from where they played each other when he was head coach at Rowan County and contacted him about my sons. My sons both settled on an excellent DIII out of state school that offers engineering directly without going through the 5 and half years of a 3+2+football program. (If they want to play their senior year, they have another semester added onto the three years and if in-state that sure stretches past the KEES money scholarship) As a side note, my older son was offered full athletic scholarship after his academic scholarships by EKU, but decided to take the direct engineering route and tougher academics of an elite academic DIII school. I would have loved to have seen him play at a football school close by like EKU, but, he is doing well with the Ivy League level academic school he attends. He had a succesful sophomore year of starting all eleven games at guard and making conference athlete of the week once while being academic all-conference on the year (3.6GPA and above). His team made it to the national DIII playoffs for the second time in school history this past season. During recruiting he was offered an official visit by an Ivy League team, but passed on it for his own personal reasons. My younger son did not receive the attention that the older son did in most part because his team record wasn't much to look at. As a player, he is bigger, stronger, had larger stats and is about as athletic as his older brother. He did receive lots of general interest from out of state, especially from the northeast and midwest after I put his name in a very budget minded recruiting database. I think we had about 93 requests for film and several personal contacts by coaches. But he choose the school his brother went to in the long run and his mother and I look forward to seeing them play together for the next two years again. By the way, everyone knows that there are NO DIII scholarships. But if the school really wants your kids for their academics as well, there are considerable academic scholarships that schools can offer. We don't drip with money in our home, but between the two boys, their school academic scholarships are approaching six figures annually which is the ONLY way we could afford the school they are attending. Someone posted "HIT THOSE BOOKS!" I couldn't agree more with that person.

If you would, please add Rockcastle Counties' Corey McPhetridge to U Pike and Jared Lake to Washington University in St. Louis to the list. Wash. U. is DIII

I'm not sure...I think so. Garrard still had a pretty big line without him.

When I was discussing the kids that attended the schools besides Garrard, I wasn't meaning it as a bad thing. I didn't name any kid by name on purpose because I didn't want it to look like I was poking fingers at anyone. What I meant by my post was the fact that Mark has done a great job there at Garrard and he did it without some talent that usually a rural County school can ill afford to lose and still be successful. Yes, I was talking about the Hester boy at Boyle. His father is a top drawer coach in my opinion and my son, who played in the KY vs. TN Border Bowl when he was coaching this past year really liked him as a coach. I don't have any idea of the circumstances of his departure from Garrard as a coach. No, I don't think it would make a difference about the kids attending Garrard that aren't playing there, because they probably have a good reason for not being in Garrard as explained about the boys from Cartersville not playing there. Those boys attended Rockcastle since kindergarten, I'm sure they weren't recruited at that time. LOL Cartersville is a long way from Lancaster and there are areas even more distant than there where it is easier for the kids to cross the county line to attend school. A trip to Berea (Madison Southern/Berea) from Cartersville is five minutes and from Lancaster to Cartersville is more like twenty-five to thirty minutes. The bus ride can be quite a trip by the time all of the transfers are completed from some of these areas. The Cartersville buses can be seen traveling at 6 to 6:15am to their routes to be able to complete them on time. As a side note, I am aware that there is a rule that only three kids can go to any school district outside of Garrard County and do it legally. Contracts must be signed and updated from year to year. This goes back to the 1980's when Garrard accused Berea Community of recruiting their athletes. Many kids from the Cartersville area were attending Berea at the time because of the before mentioned bus trip and distance of travel to Lancaster. The road to Lancaster was much worse then. To make a long story short, the kids that were attending other schools at the time were grandfathered in and the new rule mentioned above was implemented. So three kids can go to Berea, three to Madison Southern, three to Rockcastle and so on. If a person works in another school district and lives in Garrard County, they are allowed to take their kids with them as a professional courtesy. They are very strict about this in Garrard and if a kid is caught going to another school without contract, they can be forced back to Garrard because Garrard won't release the state money that is provided for that child to another county.

As small and rural a county as Garrard is, Coach Scenters has done some really incredible things with the Golden Lions football. It was a blessing for Garrard County that Madison Southern(Mark's alma mater) didn't pick him for their coach when he was available. Just imagine what Garrard could have done in 3A if they had the kids that play out of county that live there or just transfered out. I think that Danville had two from Garrard, at least one of which made all state in the Louisville CJ. Boyle County had one who made all state in the CJ and his dad coaches at Boyle. Rockcastle had two brothers from Cartersville who always attended Rockcastle because family worked for the Rockcastle system, one of whom made the CJ all state list as well. Mark has really overachieved and you guys had better hold on to him. I think that a new field at the new high school would go a long way in do just that.

It's true that several really good players will be missed. My favorite senior this past year was Markell Hayes. Heck of a defensive motor. You're right about the line. It should be dominating with the experience there and with the Abney kid behind them tossing the ball around. I'm sure Mark Scenters will find a good mix to put onto the field. Good luck to the Garrard County boys and Coach Scenters!

Good luck to Paris! I couldn't believe how far things had slid there since I was in school. (Mid 80's) They used to dress out about seventy five or one hundred kids...came in three or four buses to Berea(district rivals) and would wear down class A opponents with the two teams O and D which was pretty much unheard of for most Class A teams back then. They were number one in the state most of the time and winning championships. At one point my senior year if I remember correctly, the district consisted of Paris ranked number one, Harrodsburg was three, Mercer County was five, Garrard County was like tenth and Berea was thirteenth in class A. Hard to believe that Mercer was class A now isn't it?

He has a good network of freinds who are coaches out there. He'll find something even if he is an assistant for a season is my guess. I'd say he will bide his time until the right job opens up and maybe help out with one his friends programs. That's just a guess on my part...not a rumor or fact.

Graham coached the linemen at the KY vs. TN Border Bowl. I talked to him a time or two. Seemed like a pretty nice guy. Kids liked and respected him. I know my son liked him pretty well. Hate it for Poynter though, the way things have gone. If they treat Graham like that, I'd say he will pull up stakes again.

My son has been wearing the same helmet for the past four years at Rockcastle. It's an old Schutt that I personally went out and bought a full "umpire" facemask with extra bars to protect his chin where he plays on the line. It is gouged, beat to hell and the facemask has a few bent bars on it, but, it is still intact and survived four years of him starting on the line. It never came off and the only problem with it was replacing a few of the rubber facemask holders on it and a whole bunch of the chinstrap snaps that would get broken. I had a Riddell in high school in the early 80's and I still wear the scar on my chin where I hit a big guy from Harrodsburg in the numbers while downfield blocking. Three of the four rubber facemask holders broke and my teeth went through my upper chin. Thus the attention I put into my son's helmet. BTW....he got ribbed by the other boys at the KY/TENN Border bowl for having an "old school" egghead helmet. He just grinned and said he'd keep it.

LOL....too funny. I knew someone would bite on that one. That is why I posted that. I have no opinion one way or the other on Highlands.

I think I heard someone say that there was around 5,000 people or more at the game. The weather was great on Saturday which probably brought out a few more than on a normal first week of January day. There still isn't a video link in the WYMT website yet that is post game and the Border Bowl website hasn't been updated either.

Wow....I thought I just heard thunder come from the north side of the house :eek:....in January of all months. LOL

Yes, he did and he played well. Kentucky's offense seemed out of sync the first half, but, the defense kept them in it. It was 7-7 at halftime. The second half, the offense moved the ball, especially in the fourth quarter. The defense started to make some silly mistakes like penalties at crucial times. On the last Tennesee drive, Kentucky's defense was penalized on a third and long situation for unsporstmanlike conduct where a kid decided to mouth off after a play. It cost them dearly. Another penalty for Def. pass interference and another for something else and Tennesee was on the doorstep. Tennesee scored with 55 seconds left and took back the lead that Kentucky regained at the 2:10 mark. Kentucky marched the ball downfield from about their own 20 to the Tennesee 30 yard line with one second left. A pass to a group looked like a Kentucky catch, but, when the boy hit the ground it popped out. Tennesee had 5 kids that are listed at 298 pounds and above. Kentucky had three that were listed at 295 and above. My son played against both of Tennesee's 315 pounders. He weighs 250 or so. It was a great atmosphere and the kids from Kentucky seemed like a great polite group of kids. For a kid to get onto the team, his head coach has to nominate him and then the team is selected by a panel of directors. A high school team can only nominate two kids total. I think the head coach can pick a few that they want. Sam Harp of Danville was the head coach.

There is a flaw with the way every all-star/state team is picked. From the CJ all-state team, that flaw would be the fact that every coach has a ballot to send in. Coaches for example in Eastern Kentucky get word of a good player in the mountains. They have to plan their game around a certain kid from another team if they play against them. An example would be a fine young athlete named Robinson from Perry County Central who is a tackling machine. Word gets out and you get a large block voting for this impressive kid who has a large group of mountain coaches talking about him. Can this kid play on the level of say Highlands or Trinity? Who knows?....but he impressed a large group of coaches in a specific region who voted for him. Thus...he is voted first team all-state and in my humble opinion, deservingly so. You take Trinity who played several out of state teams. You know that as a team they are awesome. But, by playing out of state competition, they weren't exposed to as many in-state coaches (voters) who noticed names when filling out ballots. The best on the team get the votes, but, those that are very good that played in the shadows of the great players with the names (like Quick) don't get noticed. It's not a conspiracy to lock out players from the voting, (I read somewhere "Trinity overload" or something like that) but, there are just so many votes that coaches that played against these teams have to put down for the players they have been exposed to. You probably won't see many votes coming from Paducah for a kid from Highlands unless he has a name. The AP voting has flaws in the fact that many of the kids picked for it are from populated areas where the newspapers are. Rural kids don't get much love from the AP unless they are from areas near voting newpapers such as Somerset or Harlan or they are "name" kids who are superstars. You get larger blocks of votes for kids in the cities in my opinion where the newspaper voters are located and exposed to the local kids. Either way...there are going to be flaws no matter what. Just congratulate a kid that made a team whether it is the CJ team, the AP team, the BG Preps team, or the WYMT Mountain team. It's just an honor for a kid to be included if they are lucky enough and talented enough to catch the eye of some voters. Pat the kid on the back that didn't make a team, but, will be playing college ball next fall and continuing their career.

I agree! If it is for any other reason, it will come out.