By Dan Weber NKyTribune sports reporter
“Now it gets real,” first-year Beechwood Coach Jay Volker told his team – and anyone who asked – about what lies ahead for his Tigers as they head off on the road to the fourth round semifinals in the KHSAA’s football playoffs next week.
It’s hard to argue with that after Friday’s surreal 55-0 Class 2A regional championship romp past a plucky Martin County team that was way out of its league – and its mountain home hard by the Big Sandy River, much closer to West Virginia than the rest of Kentucky.
The visiting Cardinals, finishing up at 7-6, were very much the Cinderella underdogs here and played like it from the – well, from the first offensive play.
That’s when Beechwood junior quarterback Clay Hayden hit them with a 52-yard TD pass to flying freshman Tyler Fryman, who must have seemed like a blur to the flailing Cardinal defenders.
Which is certainly what Hayden’s passes must have looked like to a run-heavy Martin County team that with its wing-T offense looked like a team out of the mid-20th Century.
Hayden, however, after breaking the single-season touchdown passing record at Beechwood with that first TD toss, his 41st on the season, threw for another five – in the first half. All told, Hayden hit on 17 of 18 passes for 301 yards in just two quarters.
“I loved it,” said Beechwood offensive coordinator Greg Hergott. “I was lucky if I got to throw six or seven passes a game,” of his own high school quarterback career that still saw him earn a college scholarship.
Since the rain had stopped, Beechwood, 12-1, could go with Gameplan A: Throw it all over the lot and see if Martin County could keep up, which the Cardinals could not. But there was a Plan B, where the Tigers would play with a couple of tight ends and keep it on the ground if they had to in a rainstorm.
But they didn’t. They could go four- and five-wide and with the strong-armed Hayden and a pair of polar-opposite speedy wide receivers who can flat-out run. Fryman “skates” past people effortlessly, Volker notes, while junior Luke Erdman “runs hard and angry,” is the way Volker describes it.
Both effective. And both impossible for the kids from communities like Martin County seat Inez, pop. 546, where Pres. Lyndon Johnson announced the War on Poverty in 1964, along with the towns of Tomahawk, Beauty, Lovely, Pilgrim, Job and Warfield, to cover.
They’re 50 miles from the nearest interstate in Martin County. Friday night in Fort Mitchell, they were barely 50 feet from the nearest Interstate exit from i-75/71 just past the Edgar McNabb Field end zone. This was a fast track.
Hayden said they “had to start fast” after a number of teams including Breathitt County last week “tried to run the clock down on us.” But six first-half passing TDs? And the record?
Hayden knew he had “forty-something TDs,” but not the record. He threw two to Fryman (also from 30 yards out on a beautiful leaping catch between two defenders), while Fryman was also picking off a pair of Martin County passes using his center-fielder skills from baseball.
There were also a pair to junior James Cusick (from nine and eight yards), as we continue the underclass theme here. And one each to Erdman (from 71 yards) and senior Talon Linder, from 14 yards out.
And all in the first half which saw Beechwood leave for intermission leading 41-0 and guaranteeing a running clock for the second half which had most of the Beechwood starters resting.
And had youngsters like freshman quarterback Bo Sowder, sophomore tailback Brody Aylor and crushing sophomore tackler Chase McDaniel with a 14-0 edge over Martin County.
But no joyous celebration for Beechwood as the Tigers go for their fourth straight state title but have to negotiate a five-hour trip to Mayfield to face the team from the tornado-ravaged Western Kentucky town that Beechwood beat, 14-13, in last year’s championship game. And 38-7 in the 2021 semifinals.
Neither of those games, however, were in Mayfield. “We don’t know where we’re going,” Volker said before the end of the Mayfield-Lexington Christian game (won surprisingly big, 58-36, by Mayfield) but we know they’re going to be tough. Like against the team from down the street (Covington Catholic, a 35-31 loss), it’s going to come down to inches.”
That is, after the 300-mile trip to get there. “We love it, going on the road,” Hayden said, talking of the Dixie Heights and CovCath games, each a couple of miles one way and then the other on the Dixie Highway.
“We’ve got to be perfect, no matter who we play,” said senior two-way lineman Xavier Campbell, who made the Mayfield trip as an eighth-grader for a 35-7 Beechwood loss in 2019.
That’s the theme here. Remember that lone loss, by four points to CovCath, and make sure it doesn’t happen again with a perfect week of practice, Volker told his team.
“Stay locked in,” Hayden told his teammates, after demonstrating just how to do that.
Back to see his old team for just the second time since he retired after last season and eight state championships, Noel Rash could not have been more proud.
“Jay does a great job,” he said of his successor, “and the rest of our staff all came back. We knew we left the cupboard full.”
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Martin County 0 0 0 0—0
Beechwood 14 27 8 6—55
SCORING SUMMARY
Beechwood: Fryman 52 pass from Hayden (Lair PAT)
Beechwood: Cusick 8 pass from Hayden (Lair PAT)
Beechwood: Cusick 9 pass from Hayden (Lair PAT)
Beechwood: Fryman 30 pass from Hayden (Lair PAT)
Beechwood: Erdman 71 pass from Hayden (PAT Hayden run fails)
Beechwood: Linder 14 pass from Hayden (PAT Lair)
Beechwood: Aylor 4 run (PAT Aylor run)
Beechwood: B. Sowder (PAT fails, Beechwood takes a knee)