By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Friday’s second round Class 4A playoff replay from a year ago turned into an old-fashioned slugfest, and not the baseball kind.
Johnson Central, out of Paintsville, had made the five-hour trip in school buses to Park Hills for the second straight year and was determined to get its money’s worth this time around, even against a favored Covington Catholic team going for its 10th straight win. There would be no replay of last year’s 31-0 loss.
That was obvious in a first half when the Golden Eagles delivered blow after blow, running their “old, old school” belly option offense out of the 1950’s. No matter that star running back Zack McCoart, the No. 3 rusher in Kentucky with 2,221 yards, was limited by a hamstring injury. Of the game’s 47 first-half plays, Johnson Central ran 35 of them in jumping out to a 13-0 lead and up 13-7 at intermission.
“I’m proud of every one of you,” Johnson Central Coach Jesse Peck told his teary-eyed guys after CovCath’s come-from-behind 14-13 win. “You guys played your tails off for four quarters . . . you gave it everything you had.”
It just wasn’t quite enough after CovCath junior Logan Sanning blocked that second extra point in the second quarter. Down 13-0, CovCath had life. A chance.
“I was just thinking: Go for the ball,” the quick junior Sanning said from his outside spot on the kick block team. “But it was Tate (Kruer) who took out the (outside) blocker. He occupies him” and Logan flew past for the game-winner.
“Obviously you don’t know that at the time,” said Kruer, a senior linebacker/tight end whose 18 tackles led the Colonels while his pair of 55-yard punts (one down to the 1-yard line) kept them in a game they could have been out of before they got going
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“They didn’t waver,” CovCath Coach Eddie Eviston said. “They had to make plays and they did.”
Against this Johnson Central team, they did. “That’s a good football team,” Eviston said. “They do a lot of old, old school stuff” that gives everybody on their schedule trouble. The full-house backfield features power and ball-fakes with the quarterback under center and the fullback lined up almost on the quarterback’s shoes, barely a yard behind the offensive line.
“We’re doing seven-on-sevens (passing tournaments) in the summer,” Eviston said, “and they’re doing that.”
In a Johnson Central game, everything is pretty much scrunched up, like a prize fight in a phone booth. It’s why top CovCath defensive end Nick Krallman managed to make 12 tackles with one sack, running a number of plays down from behind on the other side of the line. ‘I knew if I got there, I was going to have a chance.”
That might have been the same thinking for CovCath senior wide receiver Oliver Link. Sidelined for the first four games with a hamstring injury, Link’s 35-yard reception in the second quarter led to quarterback Cash Harney’s eight-yard TD scamper on the next play.
And then Link, a 6-foot-3, 170-pounder, got loose on a double move that saw his defender fall to the ground injured on the second move and left Link all alone in the end zone for the game-tying TD.
“Look it in and catch it,” Link remembers telling himself. As he did. “That was a great call by Coach E,” Link said. “I think the last couple of games, I’m contributing more after missing those early ones.”
All CovCath needed now was for Ryan Urti, who had made 50 of 56 extra points this season, to convert and the lefty did just that. Even in a game where the Colonels totaled just 128 yards of offense, it was enough.
The theme around here, Eviston said, is “Play the next play, play the next game . . . this was the next game.”
But now “the next game” will be defending state champ Boyle County Friday in Danville at 7 p.m. against a team that clobbered CovCath in the state championship game a year ago.
“I’m excited,” Link said, “I want my revenge after that 41-0 (loss) . . . I’ve definitely got a big chip on my shoulder.”
SCORING SUMMARY
JOHNSON CENTRAL (8-4) 7 6 0 0—13
COVINGTON CATHOLIC (10-2) 0 7 7 0—14
Johnson Central: Barnes 6 run (PAT) Bentley kick good
Johnson Central: Morrow 1 run (PAT) kick blocked
CovCath: Harney 8 run (PAT) Urti kick good
CovCath: Link 14 pass from Harney (PAT) Urti kick good
