By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Talk to the Conner players and they’ll tell you the way they’ve worked on handling a “sudden change” scenario saved them Friday night and turned a potentially disastrous start against Newport Central Catholic into the Cougars’ first win in 2025.
Talk to interim Conner head coach Noel Rash and he’ll tell you this team’s ability four weeks into the season to handle the ultimate “sudden change” scenario — the loss of longtime coach Dave Trosper to a heart attack in June — may be the key to turning around their home season.
And a tribute to Trosper, Northern Kentucky’s then longest active coach after 18 seasons at Conner, as well as to the 58-year-old Rash, whose final three seasons at Beechwood resulted in a 39-3 record and three state titles. It took this Conner team exactly three games to lose him three more.
And then came Friday. And a look up at the scoreboard with plenty of time left until halftime and there it was: Conner 35, NewCath 0.
You read that right. “They’re running clock on us in the second quarter,” one incredulous NewCath assistant in the press box said with a shake of the head. After all, the now 1-3 Thoroughbreds had romped, 40-0, over Boone County last week.
He wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Except for the Cougars themselves, even after getting whacked by a combined 87-0 score in their first two road games against Class 6A teams. And then a 40-27 loss to Lloyd last week.
“I expected it,” said senior Travis Keen, who scored the Cougars’ final TD on a play-action reception with 11:45 left in the game. “We’ve just been keeping everything together. We really shut it down,” he said of that early “sudden change” that had NewCath recovering a fumbled opening kickoff and driving down to the Conner 15.
But on a fourth-and-1, Conner stopped the NewCath ball-carrier for a 10-yard loss. And the rout was on. “Gotta’ be ready for a stop there,” said cool Conner quarterback Grayson Montgomery, who led the Cougs on a five-play, 75-yard drive inspired by the quick junior JoJo Hernandez’ opening 34-yard dash through and around NewCath tacklers.
Considering his total run yardage the first three games was a minus-1 on 12 carries, that was more than a plus. Pretty much an inspiration. “I knew it was possible,” JoJo said of his 58 yards on just four carries, “I just needed to get my momentum going.”
“It means so much to us,” Montgomery said of the initial win in a season dedicated to the coach they lost, “especially with Coach Trosper’s wife (Ginny) here tonight.” And especially with Montgomery himself throwing five touchdown passes to make it happen.
Or the way senior Shepherd Dozier ran and caught his way into the end zone for four scores — one rush (from eight yards) and three receptions (from 11, 19 and 69 yards).
Coach Trosper’s widow wasn’t the lone family connection here in Hebron. Coach Rash’s 90-year-old mom — Mary Lee — was here as well to see her son, who called her from his job at the airport to tell her he was quitting to go to Thomas More when the Saints started football. “Mom, I’m coming home,” he remembers telling her, and playing college football.
And now here he is at his new home, two years after retiring from 17 brilliant seasons and eight state titles at Beechwood.
And here the Cougars are, fighting through the sudden coaching change, losing Dave Trosper at the way-too-young age of 55. “The kids are so emotionally attached to Dave,” Rash said. And a new policy in Kentucky requiring a third-party source made one-on-one communicating between a coach and his players more than a little difficult when they most needed it at the beginning.
“But that’s starting to lift,” Rash says of what’s happening here. “Keep loving the grind,” he tells his celebrating players. “This energy you have right now, you’ve got to have it every time . . . We’re not going to let bad things stop us.”
For Rash himself, so accustomed to control of a program that took three years and 42 games for his last three losses and just three weeks this year: “I’m not any different than the kids,” he said of how hard the losing is.
“But I’m the face of the program . . . you have to model it,” Rash said and if you checked out his pregame body language, all you could think was if only the Cougars could model that.
And then they did. The longer this game went, from barely allowing NewCath a first down and just 98 total yards in sprinting out to a 42-0 shutout they held on to until the final 2:20, you could check the Cougars’ body language out.
And know for certain that their coaches — Trosper and Rash — would be very proud of them.
This is how you do football. You don’t give up, from play to play, practice to practice, week to week, turning losses into a win
.
“I knew it was going to happen one day,” JoJo Hernandez said. “I think this is what we’re supposed to be doing.”
SCORING SUMMARY
CONNER 21 14 0 7– 42
NEWCATH 0 0 0 7 — 7
Conner: Dozier 8 run (Ginn kick good)
Conner: Koller 22 pass from Montgomery (Ginn kick good)
Conner: Dozier 19 pass from Montgomery (Ginn kick good)
Conner: Dozier 15 pass from Montgomery (GInn kick good)
Conner: Dozier 69 pass from Montgomery (Ginn kick good)
Conner: Keen 11 pass from Montgomery (Ginn kick good)
NewCath: Brooks 1 run (Mazzocca kick good)