By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
There they were, lining the main drag in Ludlow Friday, more than a mile-and-a-half of red-and-black-wearing folks of all ages up and down Elm Street, waiting for the parade. It was Homecoming. And the fire engines, floats and queen candidates in fancy dresses on cool convertibles were on their way.
“Who does that anymore?” Ludlow football coach Woodie McMillen asked of his hometown’s love of this team and its high school. But then, who else has a bright red artificial turf field? Maybe three other places in the country – at least two of them colleges.
And a stadium – “historic” James Rigney Stadium is how they call it here — built by the WPA in 1936 that looks like it was built yesterday painted black and red and spiffy as heck. With a three-room Hall of Fame under the stadium hosting and highlighting the school’s 225 Hall of Famers that is busy with pregame visitors.
“These are two proud communities,” McMillen – a Ludlow native and alum and former Bellevue coach – knows and says with absolute certainty. “Football is important in the river communities – Ludlow, Bellevue and Dayton – the culture here is important.”
And has been for the past 99 years since these teams first played in 1925. They have three state championships between them (two for Bellevue in 1977 and 1979 and one for Ludlow in 1975). Bellevue leads the series 67-37-5 but it’s tilting Ludlow’s way now with a school-best 10 straight wins although not quite equal to the 16 straight Bellevue won from 1943 through 1958.
Win No. 10 came Friday with the Panthers, now 4-2, rolling to a 43-0 win, their best effort of the season and their last non-district game. That’s right, after all their years together, Ludlow and Bellevue have been split up in Kentucky’s Class A with Bellevue joining Dayton, Newport and Newport Central Catholic while Ludlow is grouped with Bishop Brossart, Trimble County and Holy Cross.
“The district starts tomorrow,” McMillen told his team after Friday’s impressive romp over a now 3-2 Bellevue team. “We’re the champs (after last season) . . . I’m proud of you.”
As McMillen should be. His guys “fly to the football,” he says in describing the Panthers’ defense. McMillen said it three times – “fly to the football,” is what they do. “In the NFL, they say to get into the picture.”
These Panthers do just that with a pair of two-way running backs running to the ball as hard as they do when they’re carrying it. Dameyn Anness is one of them, the shifty guy with speed and the ability to change directions and spin and keep going. And that’s on his outside pass rush.
The junior is just as athletic with the ball in his hands, scoring from the nine and the 17 while having another 51-yard TD negated by a holding call. “Dameyn’s a freak,” his coach says.
Although maybe not as much a one as the hammer at middle linebacker – 5-foot-11, 195-pound Aiden Smith-Baxley, who pounds opponents with the ball on offense, then turns around and runs them down when they turn him loose on defense.
His favorite expression to describe what happens to teams after he hits them both ways: “That can deflate a team,” he says, something that he hasn’t let happen to him.
Although he grew up in Ludlow, he says, he played on a national team in the eighth grade, started thinking of the exposure he might get playing at a bigger school and his parents moved to Alexandria so he could play for Class 6A Campbell County.
But then he got hurt. And transferred to Newport the next year and that didn’t work out. So he returned to Ludlow last season and has recalibrated his plans, and now he “might walk-on” to a college program. It just depends. His height might work against him but not his talent. He can play. And he will hit you.
“Aiden’s as good an inside runner as I’ve coached in 31 years,” McMillen says of Smith-Baxley who has been playing in a cast for a broken thumb on his right hand the last two weeks as he learns to carry the ball in his left hand now.
But it’s not all hitting. The Panthers play two quarterbacks – last year’s starter, junior Jackson Mays, who threw one TD pass to senior Carter Evans from 14 yards out before freshman Miller Reed hit Evans from 20 yards for the next TD to end the first half.
“He won that battle,” Mays says of the precocious freshman who almost dislodged him in preseason.
“But we get equal reps,” Mays said of the way McMillen uses the pair with Mays often under center when he’s not lining up as wide receiver.
“I’m proud of the way he runs the offense,” McMillen says, “he’s an outstanding teammate.”
This Ludlow team has a number of them. Like the third quarterback, sophomore Jaylen Stone, who came on late and lost the ball on a handoff exchange, saw it on the turf, scooped it up and scored from 17 yards out, too quick for the Bellevue defenders to catch before he hit the end zone.
Both teams move on to district play next week with Ludlow hosting Trimble County Thursday and Bellevue gets back home to Gilligan Field for its annual neighborhood rivalry against Dayton Friday.
SCORING SUMMARY
BELLEVUE 0 0 0 0—0
LUDLOW 7 7 14 15—43
LUDLOW: Brandenburg 9 pass from Reed (PAT) McMillan kick good
LUDLOW: Anness 9 run (PAT) McMillan kick good
LUDLOW: Evans 14 pass from Mays (PAT) McMillan kick good
LUDLOW: Evans 20 pass from Reed (PAT) McMillan kick good
LUDLOW: Anness 17 run (2-pt. PAT) Clary pass from Reed
LUDLOW: Stone 17 run (PAT) McMillan kick good