Trigg County Coach Chris Ezell was ecstatic with his team’s 4-0 start to the football season. But he also wanted to see how his team would respond to adversity. LaRue County gave the Trigg County coach what he hoped for and his football team gave him what he wanted to see as the Wildcats rallied from a ten-point halftime deficit to beat LaRue County 44-30 Friday in Hodgenville.
For Trigg County, it’s their first 5-0 start since 2007. It’s also the first time a Trigg County football team has won a regular season game in the eastern time zone in five trips.
It looked dicey for the Wildcats early in the third quarter. LaRue County had scored 22 straight points to end the first half and take a 30-20 lead into the locker room. The Hawks got the ball to start the second half and drove to the Trigg County 6-yard line. But a crucial holding call in the backfield resulted in a 19-yard penalty. LaRue needed just two plays to get to the Wildcat 2-yard line, but their next two plays resulted in a loss of 1 yard and an incomplete pass on fourth down.
Trigg County immediately responded with a 97-yard touchdown run by Kelsey Parham. The run is the longest in school history and eclipsed Vic Grubbs’ 95-yard run against Fort Campbell in 1973. It also brought the Wildcats to within three points at 30-27.
On LaRue‘s first play of the ensuing drive, LaRue running back Hollis was hit and fumbled. Kahmani Bush pounced on the loose ball. The Wildcats needed just four plays to cover 62 yards and took the lead when Parham took it in from 11 yards out for a 34-30 lead.
Trigg‘s defense forced LaRue County to punt and then began the back-breaking drive of the game as they drove 74 yards in eight plays. Jacob Wease snuck it in from one yard out to give Trigg a 41-30 advantage.
The Wildcat defense stiffened up in the second half, allowing just 83 rushing yards on 13 carries.
Earlier in the game, Olivia Noffsinger saw her streak of 27 consecutive extra points end when her attempt was blocked. It was only appropriate that her first high school field goal was from 27 yards out and she split the uprights with 3:36 to go for the final 14-point margin. It was Noffsinger’s first field goal of the season.
Her consecutive extra point streak fell six short of the school record set by Brent Wietting in 2005. It’s one more than Bengi Reynolds’ streak in 1994 and is the second-longest by a Wildcat kicker.
Trigg County built a 20-8 first half lead as Parham scored two of his four touchdowns in the half. He finished the game with an unofficial 306 yards rushing on 26 carries. That would equal the school record set by Al Baker against Marshall County in 1984.
Wease was 10 of 22 passing for 187 yards and did not throw a touchdown for the first time this year. The Wildcats outgained LaRue 534 to 340 in total yardage and had nearly 300 yards of offense in the second half.
The matchup was the first between the two schools. LaRue was supposed to come to Cadiz last year but the game was a Covid casualty. Trigg County instead picked up a home game with Crittenden County.
The Wildcats are 5-0 for the first time since 2007 and will travel to Fulton County next week. The Pilots were a 52-36 loser to South Fulton, Tennessee Friday. They will enter Friday’s game with a record of 2-3.
