By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
The challenge for small school Class 1A football teams in the postseason playoffs, coming off a tough 10-game regular season, is always the same.
As it was Friday at the MAC (Mustang Athletic Center) in Alexandria where a youngish Bishop Brossart team was attempting to advance to the second round against Bellevue’s Tigers in a battle of 5-5 teams.
Let longtime former Cincinnati Bengals’ center and equally longtime former Holy Cross head coach Bruce Kozerski, now an assistant to his son, Adam, the second-year head coach at Brossart, explain it. As he told the victorious Mustangs, decisive 30-6 winners in a game that started in mist and drizzle and finished up as some serious fog rolled in.
“We said ‘next man up,’ “ Kozerski told them, “and by God, we got it.”
Indeed. By the time small school teams hit November, it’s not an upset when the teams’ cheerleaders outnumber the healthy players, as they did on this night, 54-53.
For Brossart, coming into this game on a three-game win streak, there have been all sorts of opportunities for the “next man” to step up. Although in Brossart’s case, the “next man up” – 6-foot-2, 160-pound senior Landon Ruth — whose 94-yard touchdown catch got the scoring started, has done more than just step up here or there.
On this night, he lined up as a slot receiver on offense and rush end on defense. “But we’ve had so many different guys injured this year,” said Adam Kozerski, “he’s lined up at right tackle and linebacker and both slot receiver spots” for us.
“And safety,” Landon says with a big grin, although the position that makes him really smile and shake his head a bit in disbelief is how with his slim, lanky frame, he lined up at tackle. And survived. And was able to come back and make the play that set the tone in a game where it looked as if a bigger Bellevue might have had the early edge.
Until Landon came across the field under the linebackers, got the toss from quarterback Landon Spaulding, and turned upfield, deep in Brossart territory.
What was he thinking when he made the turn with the ball in hand and saw nothing but wide-open space.
“Just don’t trip,” receiver Landon told himself.
But trip he did, a 94-yard TD trip that gave the Mustangs a lead they would not relinquish as junior quarterback Spaulding used his feet and his arm while senior Isaac Amin gave them another big-play receiver against a ground-bound Bellevue team averaging just 23.9 passing yards a game that was not built for playing catch-up football.
The Tigers went with something of a youth movement the first half with a pair of freshmen – quarterback Evan Brooks and running back Meikel Richards – getting the call to get Bellevue going. But to no avail in dropping their fourth straight and finishing 5-6.
“Our defense has been the key piece for us all year,” Adam Kozerski said with an offense where “we’ve had some guys dinged up.” But still, even in an 8-5 loss to defending state champ Lexington Sayre and a 6-3 loss to undefeated and high-scoring Holy Cross – like Sayre, averaging right at 40 points a game – the Mustangs didn’t flinch.
And now, just as last year for a nine-win Brossart team, Week 2 of the playoffs presents a Newport Central Catholic team that will be favored again. And a request from the Brossart coaches for their players: “Stay off the Internet this week.”
“We know a lot of them (the NewCath players),” Ruth said, especially the guys who went to St. Joseph’s Grade School in Cold Spring, which is pretty much the dividing line between the schools.
“They like to talk . . . some of our guys do, too,” Ruth said. “It’s going to be a tough game.”
SCORING SUMMARY
BELLEVUE 0 6 0 0—6
BROSSART 13 3 7 7—30
Brossart: Ruth 94 pass from Spaulding (Runge PAT kick good)
Brossart: M. McKinsie 6 run (PAT kick fails)
Bellevue: Brown 15 run (PAT pass fails)
Brossart: Runge 37 FG
Brossart: Boruske 16 pass from Spaulding (Runge PAT kick good)
Brossart: Ketron 11 punt return (Runge PAT kick good)
