PoppaBear

Sounds like a good effort by Lex Cath .... but you have to start playing from the very first snap gentlemen! Now that you know you can do it, finish the season strong and get them in the post season.

Typical of the Lexington Catholic fan base, not much is on the record from their side during the pre-game banter to promote or add to the hype.... that being said, I will have to say that as long as Catholic does not get behind early (as they have done in several games this season), they will have a chance to compete. A key to a competive game is for the defense to not give up the big play early on - this is not the same defense as in the past several years, but they have good athletes that simply need to execute each and every play. Catholic can put up points in a short period of time, it is just a matter of the defense holding tough - play big and you will win.

If only a touchdown separates the two teams at half-time, then Catholic wins. If LexCath is down by 2 touchdowns at half, it's Boyle's game.

Curious... was the interception by Collinsworth a 'good' interception, or a poorly thrown pass?

Still no updates?? Highlands must be scoring so often that there is no time to post a new score!

Keep it in under your skin Knights - remember how things went tonight, let it fester, play with wreckless abandon and make sure you explode during the rematch.

The football field is a great place to exact sweet revenge.

Who is the Lexington 5A team?

 

Lex Cath is 4A right?

As stated earlier - Bryan Station is the 5A team that I was referring to - they have quite a bit of talent this year and could likely beat any of the 6A teams in Lexington (at least this year) - I hope they can keep the momentum in 2009 as they move up to 6A

Not so sure if this was a 'quality' win, but it was a good win to have against what has become a nice rivalry. Let's face it, the Lex Cath faithful love to play (and beat) McKee! Five years in a row - gotta love it!

Both programs are down a little bit this year, at least compared to where they were at this time last year, but with more game time experience Catholic will be hitting their stride soon enough. It's not how you play on the front side of the season, but what happens on the back side!

Good things last night - the defense looked aggressive and played with some swagger. Special teams were also stellar and set up 10 points (should have been 14 points minus the procedure call inside the 5 yard line). The defense also recovered a fumble to give a short field that led to the sole offensive touchdown of the night for Catholic.

Offense will need work on communications between QB and receivers, and the O-line will need to pick up the blitzes a little better.

But all things considered with what is still a 'wet-behind-the-ears' team, there was a huge improvement since the Bishop Chatard warm up from last week.

Keep it up Knights and listen to your coaches - they will bring you where you need to be.

Boyle County was very well prepared and very well coached for this game. Henry Clay needs to find their identity quickly.

 

Is it safe to say Lexington 6A football is hurting this season?

I think it is definitely safe to say that 6A in Lexington is hurting this season - BIG TIME. Watch out for the sole Lexington 5A program though!

What a comeback by Holmes - I listened to the game which obviously isn't the same as being there, but a few things stuck out. It sounds like Lex Cath couldn't finish the shot inside the paint at times which I assume was good defense by Holmes and Lex Cath was also not consistently controlling the boards. Foul trouble for LC also was a problem, and free throw differece was a third factor that really stuck out while listening to the game. Holmes was aggressive getting to the line shooting 23 of 38 while Lex Cath was only 6 of 12 - that's a 17 point differential just from the line.

I for one would like to see Holmes bring it hard to Mason County (or Shelby county) tonight - Play with that same energy against Miller and the rest of Mason County and you will bring a championship home to Covington.

I would like to nominate the entire Louisville Central D-line to the HHS All-Opponent Team. The only D-line that man-handled the HHS Offense for 3 1/3rd quarters this year. That alone was one heck of an accomplishment considering this was the best HHS team ever... :sssh:

Trotwood had some inside and outside LBs that simply liked to inflict pain...ala Drew Simmons style! The Trotwood game was so long ago that I forget the names and numbers of the standouts...

 

Individual Kudos:

#84 Wallace of BG at TE position. What a horse!

#14 Nick Vicini of Lex Cath at Outside LB was very tough!

#1 D.L. Moore of BG had the weaponry to inflict heavy damage to our secondary - however Austin, Drew, Oliver and Jimmy maintained the battlefield in the secondary.

#34 of BG was one of the hardest hitting LBs that the Birds faced all year.

#24 Adam Schmitz of Ryle at the LB laid some good licks on the HHS RBs. Fashioned the best eye shadow of any player the BIRDS played against.

Lex Cath secondary played strong against the BIRDS as a unit.

 

Sorry DMZ76 but I am adding toughest coach to the All-Opponenet Team:

Toughest Opponent Coach: Louisville Central. Ty Scroggins. Came out with a great game plan, made necessary adjustments. Just ran out of gas at the end of the 3rd QTR. Great job by a first year coach!

Thanks for the recognition Silver Streaker, as it means something to these kids coming from a Highlands fan because the majority of you definitely know football (and cakes, too, and possibly you know something about Hudepohl and Weideman). Other than Winston Guy and Nic Vicini on defense, the Lex Cath defenders were similar to the 'no-name-defense' of the old Miami Dolphins. Just a bunch of guys who would go after it play after play, game after game (except for the last 15 minutes against Highlands once Coach Mueller found an area to exploit for that moment, and also against Deuce Finch in the St. X game!)

^ Probably a little give and take going on between the coaches, e.g., let me have my guy at this position, and I'll give you your guy at the other position -

I saw the same thing you did. Strongopenyon, is there anybody not on the list that you would have liked to seen on it?

Link from Lexington Herald-Leader

http://media.kentucky.com/smedia/2007/12/13/23/1214allcityfootball.source.prod_affiliate.79.PDF

Total number of athletes on first or second team:

Bryan Station 5

Dunbar 6

Henry Clay 9

Lafayette 8

Lexington Catholic 10

Lexington Christian 9

Tates Creek 5

Congrats to all athletes!

 

...... I have longed contended and don't think anyone will convince me different that come mid- to late-90's when all of the fallout of KERA been occurring, privates benefitted from a mass exodus of good students and good athletes from public schools. They wanted their kids concentrating on education and ACT/SAT scores and not open response questions, portfolios, on-demand questions and the like.

 

I believe KERA had as much to do with the rise of the private schools as anything.

Great insight LBBC - where the children would go to school was a point of contention between my wife and I for several years - she went to private catholic schools, I grew up in public schools, and we would have 'discussions' where the kids would go once they started school. Along came KERA, and there was no more discussion, in 1995 we enrolled our oldest child into the local parish school. We were fortunate to have had a choice, and not everybody is that lucky to have an alternative school, but your insight rings true with many families that we know who opted out of the public school systems in the mid 1990s because of the unproven educational reforms.

..... Only way I can rationalize it is Highlands like a lot of other strong programs in the state does have a difficult time putting a schedule together. I do know for a fact that if the Herbie had fallen through this year, we were going to be playing Colerain, so I guess Dale tried and with all the preseason hype, who could have known that Trotwood would have turned out to not be the super strong team that everyone thought it was going to be.

Although I miss the excitement of recent years where the playoffs in the old 3A class were decided between Highlands, Cov Cath or Lex Cath, the one good thing I see with the current classification is that with Lex Cath in 4A and Highlands and Cov Cath in 5A that the regular season will hopefully see these teams play each other year after year. It was great to see Highlands and Lex Cath play in the regular season this year, and LC tried to schedule Cov Cath at one point for the first game of the season, but there was a scheduling conflict for Cov Cath. Maybe Coaches Mueller and Letton will keep the Highlands / LC game on the books and LC can bring Cov Cath into the mix, too.

Week 8 is about as over as the season gets.

 

As for your last sentence, I agree with everything but the fun part...

I would usually agree that week 8 is about as over as it gets in the regular season - but at least for this year Lex Cath did a lot of growing after the Highlands game - especially towards getting Shane Israel 100% game healthy and integrating a full running attack with the passing game. By the time Lex Cath played Boyle the second time around, LC was a very different team on offense and even had improved on defense, too.

By the way Sticky - I always enjoy the Highlands posts here on BG preps, but I especially enjoy yours and Leatherneck. I'm still hoping that in ten years or by the next generation, the community here in Lexington will become as rabid for high school football as northern Kentucky and Louisville. If we could only schedule match ups between privates and publics in Lexington, then the interest in high school football would definitely grow, and the level of play would improve also.

I totally agree Lone Oak was outmanned and it showed...they were however a very good team. It reminds me of the way NCC put it on Mayfield a few years back. Plus, I would bet if Winston Guy was running full speed at you EVERY play and your line couldn't hit him before he was past you many score would be lopsided...

 

I still feel Lone Oak is 3A material and Lex Cath is 5A...I also think that Lone Oak would have beaten Lou. Central or Paducah Tilghman coming from the Western half of 3A. As we know Central upset Belfry!

There is no way Lone Oak would have beaten Louisville Central. No way. And probably not Belfry either. And Tilgman is questionable, too.

I hate trying to compare games, and guessing the 'what-ifs', but I am going to do it anyway since Lexington Catholic played both St. X and Highlands. So here comes my ‘two-cents’.

Lex Cath played St. X in the 3rd game of the season, and it was evident that Lex Cath was not ready for 'prime time'. St. X was clearly the superior team, they had a great game plan and they were unbelievably fast to the ball on defense. Furthermore, with a healthy Deuce Finch, well, let's just say we know what Mr. Finch did to LC – he gave St. X explosive scoring potential.

Lex Cath played Highlands in week eight, so in theory, both teams should have progressed and gotten better by this point of the season. Truth is, Lex Cath had actually regressed due in part to the injury to Shane Israel and a passing game that was still getting its feet wet. This is what I noticed about Highlands though; similar to St. X, Highlands was also fast to the ball and disciplined on both sides of the line. The Birds are coached to not make the big mistake and it showed. However, they did not seem to have the offensive explosiveness that St. X had, and it was not until the middle of the third quarter that Coach Mueller found a weakness in the Lex Cath defense. As Coach Mueller is so good at doing, he continued to exploit that weakness to score three unanswered touchdowns. Truth is, my feeling after that game was with a fully healthy LC team, it certainly would have been a closer final score, and it was also the type of game that you would like to play over at the end of the season, because you just might think that you could win that one.

On the other hand, after the St. X game, I still think that if they played five games between each other, St. X would win all five of them, at least this year that would be the case.

My bottom line – I think that St. X out matches Highlands in a head to head game, and this would put Trinity at the top spot, St. X, then Highlands. Heck, here in Lexington, some people still argue who is the best in this town, but until Lexington publics schedule Lexington privates we just jabber about it….. but that is a whole different story!

Great season for Highlands – the only undefeated team in Kentucky – but unless you play head to head, the rest is just fun conjecture.

obviosly you've never seen highlands play

I've seen all three play, and all three teams are great. I still say

1. Trinity

2. St. X (by a hair)

3. Highlands

And I said it before and will say it again, IF Deuce Finch had been healthy and running like he did in the early and mid part of the season, Trinity would not have made it into overtime against X.

LC does have great team speed, but many overstate it. Team speed is not necessarily measured according to 40 times. Well prepared teams can look fast when they do things correct. Teams that pursue well may appear to have more speed than is shown on the 40 stopwatch. There are teams that have more team speed than LC, but it's the way it's utilized that makes the difference.

 

LC may have 3 sub 4.5 forties on thier coaching staff, but not in thier Linebacking corps.

Hmmm.... I can think of two coaches that can currently run under a 4.5... and in his prime, a third one.... but I don't think that the oldest of the three can still run under a 4.5 (I think it might be more like a sub 4.5 sec 35 yard dash).

And glad that you gave a clarifying statement about the speed of Lex Cath - 3 linebackers with that kind of speed would typically mean that LC was fielding 3 more D-1 prospects. You are so right - they are fast to the ball because they were well prepared as a defensive unit, and they are also an intelligent and coachable group of good athletes.

Perfect analogy PBP. I was at that game also and I don't think too many people judged Tim Couch based on that one day at the Stadium of Champions. Leslie County's schedule maybe, but not Couch.

Maybe UK should be recruiting Robinson then?? And maybe we should bring back Hal Mumme and the Fat Man, too?

Scroggins and Louisville Central - outstanding coach and a great story - talent has always been in the school, but it takes a great coach and a motivator of young men to get them out of the hallways, out of the neighborhoods and onto the field. It is a championship experience like this that can change and positively affect young lives.

St X had a faster defense and was quicker to the ball than Highlands. Furthermore, St. X also had a more explosive running game with a fully healthy Deuce Finch as compared to the Highlands team. I could be wrong, but if Trinity faced a healthy Deuce like he was in the early and mid part of the year, then we would likely be saying that St X was the best.... The fact that St. X lost to Trinity puts T at the top, but St. X is probably a hair better than Highlands.

I'd say

1 Trinity

2 St. X

3 Highlands

4 Lex Cath

5 Bowling Green or Manual or Henry Clay (and would like to take Henry Clay off this list since they will not play Lexington Catholic)

LexCath's strength defensively all year has been their ability to pressure the passer. Most teams are able to counteract this by running the ball effectively. When I saw that lone Oak passes 90% of the time I thought this might be a blowout. If LO could have delayed the rush somehow, they could have given us fits since our secondary wasn't as strong as recent years. In other words, Lone Oak had the perfect scheme for a blowout by the LexCath defensive strength.

Not sure how many games you were actually at this year KnightsDad, but the secondary did a heck of job through out the year in covering the pass and also defending the run. While it is true that Revere was not there this year and he was the real-deal shut down corner, the secondary of Lex Cath this year actually worked very well together as a unit and they did not give up the big play. In fact two-thirds of the secondary started every game in 2006 and the other third had lots of reps as well so in 2007 they undoubtedly came into the season with experience. In addition to this experience at free-safety and corner, the Knight and Rover positions also had second year experience at the varsity level and both had a better recognition when to drop back into pass coverage. Because of this, the secondary was less likely to have one person trying to cover a flooded zone, for example, like that which was seen in 2006 against Franklin County and quarterback Ammons. Overall this defensive unit for 2007 worked as well together as any defensive team ever fielded by Lexington Catholic - it may have not had as many 'super stars' (minus d-1 recruit Winston Guy), but for a bunch of 'no-name-players', they were able to execute a well-conceived game plan week in and week out. It's been nice to have a head coach who is truly committed to defense, afterall, it is defense that wins championships, and arguably, that is what helped win in 2005, too.

I hope all the remaining favorites in 2A, 4A, 5A and 6A have had a chance to think about the first two championship games - underdog Louisville Central wins while underdog LCA gave a heck of a battle to heavily favored Beechwood. This is what makes high school football so great!

Lone Oak's schedule compared to Lex Catholic is as different as daylight & darkness. However, Lone Oak played a typical Lone Oak schedule that they have been playing for years. Its pretty much the same as the 2001 season when Lone Oak was 0-10 & only scored 19pts while giving up over 500 pts. I think Lone Oak's schedule was just fine & it didn't matter come playoff time. Just what kind of schedule does a team that has had just 3 winning seasons in 25 years schedule anyway ? I don't think you would schedule ST X or FTH or Trinity etc.

You know what? If I didn't have a dog in this fight, I would be pulling for Lone Oak, too! Now that truly is a rags to riches story. From an 0-10 season in 2001 to a 14-0 season in 2007 - that's awesome. And 19 points for the season? Lone Oak scores that in a five minute span this season! Good luck again guys - it will be fun come Saturday.