GRAYSON —The East team scored 21 unanswered points to earn a 21-6 victory in the annual Northeastern Kentucky East-West Senior Bowl on Friday at Kentucky Christian University. It was the East’s third straight victory and eighth overall in the event which was started in 2006.
The East offense out-gained the West 244 yards to 160, using its speed advantage in the run game to move the ball.
“They were playing real aggressive with their defensive ends, but our tackles did a fantastic job of reaching them on sweeps,” said East head coach Tony Love of Ashland. “Once we started to exploit some things running sweep over and over again, then it kind of started soften up the edge and it let us run up inside and get some counter plays.”
The East’s defense also forced three turnovers and only allowed the West to complete one pass, a 3-yard loss.
Love’s coaching scheme fit directly into the wheelhouse of East Defensive MVP Brecken Thomas of Greenup County.
“It’s really just side to side and then getting downhill whenever you need to,” Thomas said of his playing style. “The guys on my team really helped me create that alley so they could funnel the ball right to me and if it wasn’t done to me it was done to my cutback player …, so the guys really helped make those alleyways for me.”
Early on things looked promising for the West team, which stopped the East’s opening drive at the 3-yard line, and then answered it by putting together a 93-yard, 12-play scoring series that culminated with Isiah Baker’s 1-yard quarterback sneak for a touchdown with 7:07 to play in the first half. The ensuing 2-point conversion rushing attempt was stopped behind the line of scrimmage.
However from there, things unraveled for the West.
Behind the rushing of East Offensive MVP, Christian Rivers-Glover of West Carter, and his backfield mate Dalton Halstead of Greenup County, the East needed just five plays to drive the length of the field for its first score of the game. Rivers-Glover gained 41 yards on the ground during that stretch, while Halstead capped it off with a 19-yard touchdown run with 5:19 remaining in the half. The extra point from Greenup County’s Trey Collier gave the East a 7-6 lead and it did not look back.
The West had success moving the ball on its next drive, but a fumble at the 36-yard line ended its momentum.
“They took the ball first and they drove down inside the 5-yard line and we stopped them… . Then we took the ball and ran basically the rest of the quarter and almost all of the half out,” said West head coach Johnny Poynter of Bath County. “We had the ball on their 35 getting ready to go in again right there and we fumbled the ball. That was a big turning point in the game right there because at that point we (could) go up 14-7 at the half and we’re (going) to get the ball to start the second half.”
Despite having less than a minute until halftime, the East took advantage of the turnover and needed just three plays to get back into the end zone. The biggest chunk of yardage came on a 45-yard pass play from Russell’s Grant Wilburn to Ashland’s Isaac Caines which got the ball down to the 7-yard line with 31 seconds left on the clock.
Rivers-Glover did the rest, juking past the West defense with a hard cut back toward the center of the field near the right sideline to score the touchdown.
Rivers-Glover credited his team’s blocking as a key component to his success running the ball.
“We had a lot of really good blocks on the outside on our sweeps. Dalton Halstead was doing great with lead blocking. All around I believe our whole team had pretty good blocks all night long. There really weren’t very many missed blocks,” he said. “The line was doing a phenomenal job up front. It was just everybody doing what they were supposed to (that) really helped out.”
After the first West series, Love and his coaching staff made some defensive adjustments and from that point forward the East defense took control.
“They came out and they were foot-to-foot and (had) three backs for that first time and they were willing to take three to four yards every time to move it down the field and we tried to get off the field early but we couldn’t do it,” he said. “But as the game started to unfold, we started doing things a little bit differently up front defensively. Credit to those guys and coach (Chad) Tackett for just making some simple adjustments. And then our speed on pursuits started getting to them as they tried to get outside around the edge.”
Both teams had the ball once in the third quarter. The West was stopped on fourth down, while the East’s drive ended with an interception by the West’s Defensive MVP Evan Lewis of Rowan County.
The West took over at its 35-yard line, but that drive also ended with a fourth-down fumble with 8:25 left in the final quarter.
The East began the ensuing drive just inside West territory and drove 47 yards on 10 plays that chewed up nearly six and a half minutes for its final score. The touchdown came when Wilburn found Greenup County’s Patrick Kelly for 10-yard pass. Kelly jumped to make the catch and landed barely inside the line in the back of the end zone. Collier, the recipient of his team’s Scholarship Award, converted his third extra point of the day to give the East the 21-6 advantage with 2:07 to play.
The West turned to its Offensive MVP Chase Blanton of Harrison County in the Wildcat formation to try and generate yardage on its final drive, but the game ended with a sack on a desperation fourth-and-13 pass play.
According to Thomas, it was the East’s defensive adjustments that helped foil the West’s attack.
“In the first quarter, they really got us with the midline run and the zone runs and that kind of stuff. So, we ended up changing that to our front line cutting,” he said. “Their D-Line made the ball go out more and we used our speed to really match No. 21’s (Blanton) speed and we just kind of herded to him all game.”
The East gained most of its yardage on the ground. Halstead finished with 14 carries for 100 yards, while Rivers-Glover had 12 rushes for 79 yards. Rivers-Glover also completed two passes for six yards. Wilburn ended his night 5-for-9 for 64 yards. Ashland’s Russell Rogers caught two passes for six yards, while Kelly collected 13 yards also on two receptions.
“Finding a good hole and hitting it as fast I can, bracing for contact, hoping to get a few more yards by getting low and pushing forward,” said Rivers-Glover of his approach to moving the ball on offense.
The West did all of its damage on the ground. Blanton led the team with 15 carries for 69 yards, while Austin Trent of Jackson County tallied 66 yards on eight attempts. Baker, Trent’s high school teammate, had eight rushes for 27 yards. Bath County’s Andy McFarland caught the West’s only successful pass, but was tackled for a loss on the play.
Mason County’s Jared Collins and Bracken County’s Tyler Rice represented the Maysville area on the West team. Rice was presented with the West’s Scholarship Award after the game.
The West team had just 18 players, including some from Jackson County over 70 miles from the team’s practice site in Owingsville, and no true center, quarterback or kicker, which hampered its ability to generate offense. Poynter was especially impressed with what his shorthanded and seemingly overmatched team was able to accomplish.
“I’m just really proud of these kids. If you had known what we’d gone through all week. We showed up there on Monday and we had like 14 kids. Back and forth all week, we had a kid playing quarterback who had never played quarterback in his life. We had a kid playing center who had never played center. A lot of kids could have said, ‘you know I’m not doing this because this is not for me,’ he said. “It speaks a lot about the character of these kids and I’m just really proud of the fight they put up out there tonight.
“I told them (the East team) had Russell kids and Raceland kids and Ashland kids and Greenup kids. A lot of (our) kids don’t understand the tradition of those teams and we fought right in there with them. A break here or there and the team that’s played with a guy who has never played quarterback and (a guy who has) never played center and (just) 15 kids on our team and we end up winning that game, so I’m really proud of them,” he concluded.
At halftime, former Lewis County multi-sport coach Gary Kidwell and recently retired WFTM play-by-play broadcaster Danny Weddle were inducted into the game’s Hall of Fame.
