By Dan Weber NKyTribune sports reporter
They are the unbeaten Juggernauts, 6-0 and starting the season with the Erlanger school’s best record since 1995 as they move up to their new Class 3A.
But is this Lloyd Memorial team a juggernaut?
Newport Coach Ryan Hahn says the Juggs most definitely are, which is why he scheduled this game for his newly reclassified Class A Wildcats.
“We had no need to play them,” Hahn told his guys after a Lloyd 45-8 romp, in a game that saw Newport score first, thanks to a bad punt snap, and then give up 45 straight points to the not-always ground-and-pound Juggs.
“We scheduled hard games,” Hahn told his 4-2 team, and for one simple reason. “This is going to help us improve but you have to see it that way,” he told them, as the Newport coaches do.
Line up the rest of the Class A teams in Northern Kentucky as Lloyd’s Homecoming opponent and the results would be the same, Hahn said after his team’s four-game win streak stopped here on the brand spanking new turf of Cecil Dees Field. It was Military Appreciation Night with the teams — Lloyd in black and gold jerseys, Newport in white and gold — with the words Duty, Honor, Integrity, Respect and Integrity across the back.
Lloyd junior quarterback Isaiah Sebastian, “Petey” his teammates call him, was not so sure how to classify this one. “We didn’t play our best,” he said, although that might not apply to him on a night when he ran for 67 yards on 15 carries, took one in from 17 for a touchdown, and threw for another, while hitting on five of eight for 79 yards including 37-yard play-action TD to Tyler Copeland.
“We played awful,” Sebastian clarified his critique although much of that was focused on how the chippy game just got chippier, resulting in an incredible 31 penalties that saw seven in seven plays in one stretch with alternating unsportsmanlike conduct penalties back and forth.
“A little too much” of that, Sebastian said, then corrected himself, “a lot too much.”
But also too much of Sebastian and his junior backfield mate, Yurii Collins Comer, who ran two TDs in and blocked a punt, picked it up and ran another one in, to score three straight touchdowns in a second-quarter outburst.
“I’d done that before, the 5-7, 165-pound tailback said of the blocked punt as he does double duty as an outside linebacker. But this time “the ball happened to bounce right in front of me.” Which is where his baseball background (he’s a catcher) helped him finish the scoop and score from 10 yards out to make it 19-8 with 4:29 left in the first half.
But before Collins Comer and his teammates could make it off the field, there was skirmish between the teams that swirled out to the 35-40 yard line before the coaches and officials broke it up with offsetting unsportsmanlike conduct penalties each way.
There would be plenty more as both coaches assured there would be serious Saturday morning film study to deal with the lack of discipline. “I’m not happy with the penalties,” said Lloyd Coach Kyle Niederman. “These kids all know one another” and it was obvious there was a good deal of fight both ways.
One other thing was obvious. You do not want to be the team that throws the ball a lot, or that has to throw the ball to win against a Lloyd team that leads the state in sacks. For Newport quarterback Kyle Lee, who never gave up, it was often a run for his life. He got sacked four times, fumbled twice, and hit on six of 13 for a mere six yards and a TD from one yard out in the first half as he had to back-pedal so far, so fast, it was tough to get the ball downfield for many positive yards.
“We kind of get excited,” leading sacker Avander Abrams said of how the Lloyd defensive front approaches a game when they know they’re going to go against a passing team. They limited Lee to four-of-13 passing with an interception and a 20-yard sack the second half.
“Lloyd is what we knew they are,” Newport’s Hahn said of the “impressive” atmosphere of the new turf and stands here, not to mention the No. 3 defense in the state that held his team to right under the Lloyd average of 7.2 points allowed.
“We moved down, they moved up,” Hahn said of the new classifications for each.
But it wasn’t all bad for Newport. The Wildcats gave Collins Comer a tough way to go despite his two touchdowns with their front-line defenders making him earn every yard.
“We have the size, we have the speed,” Hahn said. “Once we get it all figured out, we’ll be an interesting team to watch.”
Lloyd already is. “It is exciting,” Niederman said of the 6-0 start. And yes, “we do try to get after the quarterback.”
“We’re not surprised,” Sebastian says of the 6-0 record. And yes, they may occasionally look down the road at where this could take them – to the playoffs, the state finals and maybe the Juggs’ third all-time state championship.
“It’s always in the back of our minds,” Abrams said, but in the front of their minds, Sebastian says, “is using the bye week to get better.”
Starting with that whole penalty thing.
SCORING SUMMARY
NEWPORT (4-2) 8 0 0 0—8
LLOYD MEMORIAL (6-0) 6 20 6 13—45
NEWPORT: Lowe 1 pass from Lee (PAT Jackson pass from Lee)
LLOYD: Sebastian 17 run (Westwood PAT)
LLOYD: Collins Comer 16 run (Sebastian run fails)
LLOYD: Collins Comer blocked punt conversion from 10 (PAT pass fails)
LLOYD: Collins Comer 2 run (Westwood PAT)
LLOYD: Copeland 37 pass from Sebastian (PAT kick misses)
LLOYD: Moran 9 run (PAT kick blocked)
LLOYD: Larkin 1 run (Westwood PAT)