By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
“Thinking you can beat us is FANTASY FOOTBALL,” said the pregame banner the Bishop Brossart cheerleaders — all 30 of them — had their Mustangs run through.
The 17 Newport Central Catholic cheerleaders responded with a bit of their own Brossart-directed snark: “Don’t forget to turn in your equipment Monday,” they said, and as it turned out, correctly.
Because their Thoroughbreds went out and proved them right with a 24-7 second-round Class 1A domination of their south Campbell County parochial rivals.
But this game wasn’t won in a battle of banners in this sub-40-degree cold at the brand-new and nearly full Ciafardini Family Athletic Complex, but in August, September and October when the Thoroughbred stumbled out of the gate, losing five of their first six games, under first-year coach Terry Brown.
“A hundred percent,” Brown agreed of the way that tough early schedule helped turn his team into the winners of their last six straight. ”I’m a big believer in playing a tough schedule.”
Strangely, there’s no hint of Brossart, finishing the year at 7-4 with their four-game winning streak ending here, on NewCath’s regular-season schedule. Not now. Not for a while.
“I can’t answer that,” Brown said of why this rivalry only happens in the playoffs. It’s a puzzle. The game would seem to be a natural. Both teams have terrific facilities with Brossart’s pastoral Mustang Athletic Complex with its indoor fieldhouse/football practice facility matching NewCath’s luxury hotel site in its location high above Newport with its breathtaking views of downtown Cincinnati. And the teams share two different halves of Campbell County.
All the better to view the work of a defense that shut out Brossart for nearly three-and-a-half quarters after holding the Mustangs to just four first downs and 75 yards of offense the first half. And then NewCath turned two-way senior star Vanden Hundemer loose.
Turned him loose for three touchdowns, his third game with three or more TDs this season – with two rushing, one receiving — for 145 yards unofficially on 33 carries, with one TD on a 19-yard screen pass from Ty Fennell, while on defense, Hundemer got a key deflection on a William Stevie interception that led to Hundemer’s first TD three plays later.
“Van’s just a workhorse,” Brown said, guessing he’d had another “20 carries,” and missing the number by double figures. Hundemer makes it look easy. “Every play I run I have the same mindset,” he says.
But this NewCath team’s mindset changed the week of the Newport game, Hundemer said. They’d had enough of losing. “We all came in that Monday,” multi-position D-lineman Liam Horan said, in his first action since suffering an AC-joint separation in the Bellevue game three weeks ago. And although he looks more like the nose tackle he sometimes plays, he loves using his speed applying pressure from defensive end.
It was that pressure that made life tough for Brossart quarterback Landon Spaulding and put the kibosh on the Mustangs’ passing game that didn’t break loose until Spaulding hit receiver Brady Boruske for a 64-yard TD with 8:28 left in the game.
Too little, too late. As NewCath closed out the scoring on Brossart-transfer Tracy Wittrock’s 33-yard field goal.
“I’m proud of you,” Brossart first-year coach Jake Martin said of the way his team turned things around after starting out 1-3. “That’s one hell of a season. Good job.”
NewCath’s season isn’t over as the Breds hit the road to Louisville for a third-round matchup against Kentucky Country Day, loser of their first three games then winners of their last nine straight including Friday’s 42-13 playoff win over Louisville Holy Cross.
SCORING SUMMARY
NEWCATH (7-5) 7 7 7 3 — 24
BISHOP BROSSART 0 0 0 7 — 7
NewCath: V, Hundemer 4 run (Wittrock PAT)
NewCath: V. Hundemer 23 run (Wittrock PAT_
NewCath: V. Hundemer 19 pass from Fennell (Wittrock PAT)
Brossart: Boruske 64 pass from Spaulding (Eldridge PAT)
NewCath: Wittrock 33 FG