By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Holy Cross head coach Curt Spencer knew a special season would be coming the Latonia parochial school’s way soon. After all, he’d been with the core of the 2025 varsity team since these kids were in middle school.
And there they were, 11-0, after a first-round playoff win, facing a veteran Newport team last November.
It did not go well for the Class 1A Indians against their fellow Northern Kentucky small school district winner in an 18-3 loss that saw them fall behind early, fumble on the one-inch line and then see their comeback doomed by way too many penalties.
“We want another shot at it,” coach Spencer says of the 2026 challenge awaiting his team. “This is the group we’ve been waiting for.”
With almost the entire team back from that dismal night capping off a terrific season, it’s clear that game has not left the returnees’ combined consciousness.
“Maturity,” senior Max Hunt says of the takeaway from that loss. “And discipline.”
No surprise the 6-foot-5, 245-pound tight end/defensive end who’s being recruited by Division I programs including — thanks to his academics, the likes of Ivy League Yale and Dartmouth — looks at that game this way: “a huge learning opportunity.”
“We didn’t lock in as leaders,” says 5-9, 205-pound senior linebacker/running back Charles Oglesby. who’s heard from Eastern Kentucky, Drake and Kentucky State after leading Holy Cross in rushing with 832 yards while scoring 12 touchdowns.
Dustin Wilson, also a 205-pound senior linebacker/running back who gained 210 yards while leading the team with 88 tackles, makes for a serious power ground game between these two. But that’s not all.
There’s speedy junior quarterback Brian Ferguson (5-9, 155) whose double-threat athleticism drives this offense after his 1,128 passing yards and 705 rushing for a team-high 15 rushing TD and another 10 passing.
Although you can adjust those ground yards a bit for the three games in midseason when Spencer told him if he kept running the ball (and risking injury) he was coming out.
Ferguson’s response: “I’ll get my passing yards . . . whatever gets the job done.” And in that Newport game, it would have been “discipline, more discipline,” Ferguson says, “do what we were doing all year.”
And don’t worry, Ferguson will be running the ball this year in what Spencer describes as “a three-headed monster running game.”
But what the Indians see as their strong suit going into a district against top challengers Brossart and Ludlow after squeaking by Brossart 6-3 and crushing Ludlow, 43-6 a year ago is their defense. Only three opponents managed double figures against the Indians who held opponents to an average 7.0 points a game with five of the top six tacklers returning.
Hunt, with 21 catches for 314 yards and six TD, gives Holy Cross one of their top two receivers back although it looks like the leader, Braylon Thornberry (24 catches/441 yards/7 YD), will miss the season with a medical issue and serve as a student coach.
Still, nine starters return on offense, seven on defense. Missing is 350-pound lineman Malcolm Perrin, now at Hiram College. Center Chase Daniels, DE Garrett Frederick and DB/WR Xavier Thornberry are other returning leaders, Spencer says.
Here’s how Ferguson sees the Indians’ greatest strength: “We’re all together, like a family. We like each other. We trust each other.”
For a small school, it’s hard to miss noticing a 17-man coaching staff with “usually 11 on the sidelines on Friday nights,” Spencer says. Calling the offense will be former head coach and former Bengals center Bruce Kozerski. Calling the defense will be veteran coordinator Rick Lehmkuhl.
The only change in the Indians’ schedule adds Class 4A Harlan County on a road trip the last week before district play. Once again, Holy Cross will play home games at Thomas More University.
Asked how this season should play out, Spencer makes it clear: “We are looking forward to a very successful year.”
HOLY CROSS INDIANS
2025 SEASON: 11-1 record, lost to Newport, 18-3, in second round of Class 1A playoffs.
STARTERS RETURNING: 9 offense, 7 defense.
DISTRICT: Class 1A, District 4 with Brossart, Ludlow, Trimble County.
HEAD COACH: Curt Spencer (14-9 in 2 seasons at Holy Cross).
2026 SCHEDULE
(Home games at Thomas More University)
Aug. 21 – ST. HENRY, 7 p.m.
Aug. 28 – at Bracken County, 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 4 – CLERMONT NORTHEASTERN (Ohio), 7 p.m.
Sept. 11 – at Holmes, 7 p.m.
Sept. 25 – at Eminence, 7 p.m.
Oct. 2 – at Harlan County, 7 p.m.
Oct. 9 – BROSSART, 7 p.m.
Oct. 16 – at Trimble County, 7 p.m.
Oct. 23 – LUDLOW, 7 p.m.
Oct. 30 – BELLEVUE, 7 p.m.