By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
You could be forgiven if, after looking at the final score of the Covington Catholic-Paducah Tilghman semifinal matchup and saw the Colonels 22-14 winners, you might have concluded that the CovCath defense won this Class 4A semi-final matchup of unbeaten teams Friday.
You would be wrong, however, even though a hang-tough CovCath defense held the state’s top-scoring team 37 points under its average of 51 a game Friday.
But that’s not when this game was won.
“We won this game on Monday in practice,” said sophomore Colonel defensive back Cash Harney, whose two interceptions Friday were a big part of why – and how – the Colonels held off a Blue Tornado team that will have a number of players going on to play at the next level.
“That’s a tremendous football team,” CovCath Coach Eddie Eviston said of a Tilghman team that finished 13-1. “Just great athletes. Our defensive staff did an incredible job. And our kids really bought in.”
Bought in all week. And all night Friday after the Colonels’ offense sputtered twice inside the red zone in the first half, then failed to score on a fourth and one in the second half after a penalty and a missed field goal. And then after scoring to make it 14-13, failed to convert on a two-point run from inside the one after two straight Paducah penalties with a curious quarterback sweep call for Evan Pitzer.
Not that Pitzer let it get to him. All the 6-foot-5 senior did was run for 123 yards and a pair of second-half touchdowns in the Colonels’ 15-7 comeback after trailing 14-7 early in the third period. With Braylon Miller adding 56 yards on six carries with a brilliant 38-yard cutback TD and Owen Leen adding 67 on 13 carries, CovCath outrushed a bigger Paducah team with four players 270 pounds or more, 246 yards to 159.
“Our defense bailed us out,” said Pitzer, who didn’t come into the game thinking he’d be carrying the offense that much. “But Coach saw something and whatever Coach says . . . “ So the failed PAT didn’t set the Colonels’ back as the defense almost immediately recorded a go-ahead safety after holding deep on the next series and getting a bad snap over punter Russell Hancock’s head into the end zone.
“That kind of bailed us out,” Eviston said. “And we were able to capitalize on their mistakes.” Even if the Colonels couldn’t capitalize on their own red zone drives.
But to do that, CovCath had to hold the state’s leading passer, Jack James, to 12 of 28 for a mere 130 yards, some 165 yards less than his average in a game played in 33-degree weather where holding onto passes wasn’t all that easy.
But running the ball, that was another story. “I just saw the green grass,” said CovCath wide receiver Miller after planting on a play that was designed to go wide and headed straight for the end zone. “Get North,” one of the CovCath coaches in the booth called out.
“Get North,” the speedy Miller, who is starting to attract interest from the likes of Louisville and Eastern Kentucky, did — with a burst that caught all the defenders flat-footed.
But it was Harney who set the tone for this game with his two interceptions and 98 yards of returns (51 and 47). It was like he was returning a punt on the first one. The second came on a deflection over the middle.
“I just saw the ball go up in the air and knew we needed a spark,” Harney said on the first deep ball, telling himself to “Go get it,” which he did. “That was a game-changer.”
Indeed. As was the sophomore Harney, who starred at the start of last season as a stand-in quarterback at Beechwood for the injured Clay Hayden, and went on to with the state 2A title. And now here he is, a year later, heading back to a championship game again at UK’s Kroger Field where the Colonels will face another unbeaten team, 14-0 Boyle County, a 41-14 winner over Franklin County at 8 p.m. Friday.
As for Paducah Tilghman, “They were talking about us,” Harney said, “we didn’t really care.”
They were still talking after the game. Paducah Coach Sean Thompson was not a happy camper. “I know that it hurts,” he told his Blue Tornado team. “We’re the better football team. We’re supposed to be celebrating, partying on their field.”
Only they weren’t. They lost not only the scoreboard and the turnover battle (four to zero with those two interceptions and two lost fumbles). Lost the rushing battle, 246 to 159. Lost the bad snap/safety battle one to zip. And the sack battle by the same margin. And the penalty battle – 57 yards on 10 penalties to just one for five for CovCath.
And for the third time in three all-time meetings with Paducah Tilghman (the other two were in state championship games in 1987 and 1988), CovCath won with a fourth-quarter comeback.
But that’s not to say Tilghman didn’t look like an immensely talented team with all that size, a strong-armed quarterback leading the state in passing and 6-1 junior four-star safety-wide receiver Martels Carter Jr., who has already been offered by the likes of Arkansas, Clemson, Colorado, Florida and Florida State and has visits scheduled for Michigan, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisville and USC among many others. He finished with 85 yards rushing on 10 carries with one 15-yard TD and 41 yards on three pass receptions with eight tackles on defense but had to work for every yard and tackle.
CovCath defenders with numbers included Josh Flood with eight tackles and Tate Kruer and Ben Reeves with seven each. Reeves also shared the game’s lone sack with Isaac Mason, who with Kruer, each had a fumble recovery.
And now, thanks to that defense, there will be the first trip to a state championship game in four years for CovCath after winning it in Class 5A for Eviston in 2019, beating Frederick Douglass, 14-7.
“We’ve been talking to our kids about maximizing the season, all 15 games,” Eviston said. And now they will get to Game 15 and get this senior class to Lexington, the final destination they’ve been talking about and shooting for all year.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
PADUCAH TILGHMAN 7 0 7 0—14
COVINGTON CATHOLIC 0 7 6 9—22
SCORING SUMMARY
PT: Williams 18 pass from James (Esper PAT)
CC: Miller 38 run (Weitzel PAT)
PT: Carter 15 run (Esper PAT)
CC: Pitzer 2 run (Pitzer PAT run fails)
CC: Kruer Safety (Hancock -22 yards run/bad snap)
CC: Pitzer 14 run (Weitzel PAT)
