By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
Opening the post-season playoffs with a home game is something the Lloyd football team has done only twice in the last 13 years. The Juggernauts won both of those games and they’re hoping to maintain that perfect record Friday when they host Green County in the first round of the Class 2A playoffs.
Lloyd finished on top in the local Class 2A district to earn the home field advantage. The last time the Juggernauts did that was 2003 and that team made it to the semifinals of the state playoffs.
“These guys have accomplished a lot this year,” coach Greg Turner said of his 7-3 team that’s No. 10 in the Class 2A statewide power rankings.
“I can’t tell you how many phone calls I got from guys who played here or went to school here saying congratulations and they’re proud of the team getting back to district champs. It’s something we haven’t done in a long time.”
Lloyd is averaging 383 yards and 36.6 points per game with senior quarterback Jordan Fann running the offense. This is the third straight season he has passed for more than 1,000 yards, but he’s also the team’s second leading rusher with 998 yards. That gives him a per-game average of 207.8 multi-purpose yards per game.
Turner said he’s giving Fann more run-pass option plays than the two previous years when he rushed for a net total of 397 yards.
“He’s still young, but he’s got a lot more maturity now,” Turner said of the 17-year old quarterback.”He’s just making really good reads and doing a good job getting the ball around to people. We have threats on the outside so defenses have to leave the middle a little open for us. Jordan has been taking advantage of that and (running back) Travon Mason has done a whale of a job as well.”
Mason has rushed for 1,252 yards and 11 touchdowns. Lloyd’s leading receivers are Jamarrow Dawson and Isaiah Voet, who both have more than 400 yards and six touchdowns.
Green County (5-5) is averaging less than 200 yards per game on offense, but the Dragons also have a dual-threat quarterback in senior Andrew Mosby, who has 779 yards rushing and 425 yards passing.
“We watched them (on videotape) for a couple hours and I said, ‘You’re kidding me, this is the fourth-place team in a district,” coach Turner said. “They’ve got some good athletes in the backfield, their quarterback is a really good football player and they’ve got some really big defensive linemen who don’t move too bad that we’re going to have to deal with. It’s definitely not you’re typical 1 vs. 4 seed, I’ll tell you that.”
Lloyd ended the regular season with a 23-22 loss to Scott last Friday in a game that was played in the rain. Turner said his players didn’t have a good week of practice leading up to that game and he addressed when they got back together on Monday to prepare for the playoffs.
“We definitely pointed back to last week and said our practices weren’t as intense as they should have been,” Turner said. “We talked about what we’ve got coming in and if we prepare the same way we might be in trouble because Green County is a good team.”
Every high school football team in Boone, Campbell and Kenton county qualified for the post-season playoffs. The only local team that doesn’t have a game on Friday is Beechwood. The defending Class A state champions have a bye.
Here are the first-round match-ups. Games will start at 7:30 p.m. Friday unless noted:
CLASS A
Louisville Holy Cross at Ludlow
Bellevue at Frankfort
Dayton at Kentucky Country Day
Brossart at Raceland
CLASS 2A
Louisville Shawnee at Walton-Verona
Green County at Lloyd
Metcalfe County at Newport Central Catholic
Holy Cross at Glasgow, 7 p.m.
Newport at Monroe County, 6:30 p.m.
CLASS 4A
Rowan County at Scott
Holmes at Ashland Blazer
CLASS 5A
Bullitt East at Covington Catholic
Oldham County at Highlands
Dixie Heights at Bullitt Central
CLASS 6A
Louisville Butler at Ryle
Jeffersontown at Simon Kenton
Louisville Eastern at Campbell County
Pleasure Ridge Park at Cooper
Conner at Louisville Male
Boone County at Louisville Ballard