By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
You could make a case that Friday’s Class 1A district game that had 2-5 Newport Central Catholic visiting the 7-0 Dayton Greendevils in front of a fired-up near-capacity crowd was all about history.
How no matter the records, NewCath’s 15-0 win streak dating back to 1998 over Dayton in this near neighborhood rivalry — which is as far back as the KHSAA keeps complete statewide records — and say that maybe NewCath’s 47-7 romp was pretty much predictable.
As wildly out-of-whack that score would seem to be in light of the records.
And yet the confident Thoroughbred players and coaches thought it might be possible. As crazy as that might sound.
Not because of history, however, at least not the kind that goes back to the last century.
Nope, it’s what happened in August, September and early October that made the difference in this one, the NewCath folks contended.
“The big question (for Dayton) was strength of schedule,” first-year NewCath coach Terry Brown said after praising his team with: “That’s how you do it, you dominate.”
But how does a 2-5 team come in here and talk about “dominating” an unbeaten bunch like the Devils?
Let NewCath senior captain Vander Hudemer, who did everything but sell popcorn as he led the Breds by running it, catching it and defending it, explain. “Coming into this game, I thought we were the more disciplined team,” Hundemer said “Against the schedule we played, we had to be.”
Against a schedule that had one 6A team, two 5A teams, Class 4A power Covington Catholic in a scrimmage and 3A power Lloyd Memorial in the opener plus downstate 1A powers Raceland and Paintsville.
“Coach (Jesse) Herbst does a great job here but I’m not sure even they knew what they had,” Brown said of a stat sheet that had Dayton outscoring its weaker opponents 44.3 to 9.6.
That wasn’t happening on this night as NewCath took just three plays to score after a 62-yard play-action bomb to get things going. Then Dayton turned the ball over the first of its three that led to scores on a backwards pass ruled a fumblel that NewCath fell on at the 17 and scored four plays later on a Vander Hundemer goal-line blast for a two-TD lead against a Devil team that completes just 2 ½ passes a game and is hard-pressed when down multiple scores.
And yes, Brown admitted, as a member of the last NewCath team to lose to Dayton in 1998, “There was . . . “ lots of noise about this district rivalry game this week with the reversal in fortunes the first seven games. After all, this was a Dayton team with just two winning seasons since 1999. And had been shut out eight times by NewCath in that span. And had a 76-213 overall record. And had never come closer to NewCath than a 28-0 loss.
“Our defense was flying around,” Brown said of the way the Breds shut down Dayton’s Malachi Kennedy as much as they could have hoped. The big junior scored Dayton’s lone TD set up by a big catch out of the backfield. But that was pretty much it for the Devils.
But nothing was slowing Vander Hundemer down as the 5-foot-9, 175-pounder with smooth acceleration and the ability to know where his blockers are creating a seam for him.
“He was running behind our offensive line and behind his shoulder pads,” Brown said. And into the end zone.
SCORING SUMMARY
NEWCATH (3-5, 2-0) 14 12 21 0 — 47
DAYTON (7-1, 1-1) 7 0 0 0 — 7
NewCath: V. Hundemer 2 run (Wittrock PAT kick good)
NewCath: V. Hundemer 1 run (Wittrock PAT kick good)
Dayton: Kennedy 3 run (Weaver PAT kick good)
NewCath: P. Hundemer 4 run (PAT kick fails)
NewCath: Hundemer 23 pass from Fennell (PAT run fails)
NewCath: Hundemer 5 run (Wittrock PAT kick good)
NewCath: Meyer 5 run (Wittrock PAT kick good)
NewCath: Meyer 11 run (Wittrock PAT kick good)