For the better part of 35 game minutes, Christian County’s newly-consolidated football team found itself in equal footing with one of America’s strongest high school programs — giving hell-and-highwater to vaunted Class 2A Mayfield.
Grabbing a three-point lead early in the third quarter, however, only awakened the beast — and the Tigers fell to the Cardinals at War Memorial Stadium Friday night, 49-32.
The Tigers, now 0-2 in their inaugural season, rushed for nearly 200 yards with scores from four different players, saw bruiser Paul Abren gash on four 2-point conversions, and mostly took advantage of three recovered fumbles and a timely interception from Jayon Bass — one made right in front of the Cardinals sideline.
Yet, it wasn’t enough.
Down 21-16 at halftime, the Tigers closed their first drive of the third quarter with a crafty 19-yard score from dual-threat quarterback Jasiah McCarley, and Abren made it 24-21 with 9:14 left in the frame.
Then, on three successive one-play drives, Mayfield delivered left hook, right hook, uppercut.
An 80-yard pass from Gray Robbins to Anderson Smith along the right sideline.
A 42-yard pass from Robbins to Ashton Flint on a left-side post route.
And a 63-yard blast up the middle from Josiah England, one of his three scores on the evening.
“Their players made plays,” noted CCHS coach Dustin Lopez. “I mean, it was three straight plays where we gave up three straight touchdowns. They scored three touchdowns in 30 minutes, and then three touchdowns on three drives.
“And you can’t stop England. You’ve got to choose one or the other, alright? And, so, we kind of sold out to stop the run and stop England, and their receivers made plays. And that’s kind of how it goes in the end.”
It’s the kind of poison frankly no team in Kentucky wants to deal with, let alone a Class 6A team trying to find its legs and identity. But it was the task all the same, and aside from England’s gallop, the Cardinals only managed 97 rushing yards in the victory.
Robbins, however, threw for 314 yards and four touchdowns, his first on a 12-yard screen to England that capped an 11-play, 67-yard, four-minute drive to open the matchup.
Trailing just 7-0 and after recovering a fumble on a punt return, the Tigers had a chance to equalize — when McCarley’s lone interception was a 40-yard pick-six from sophomore Drew Milliken.
With 8:48 left in the first half, a bad snap was recovered by the Tigers, and McCarley stayed calm after taking two sacks and connected to Antonio Ware on third-and-20 for a first down. Abren scored his touchdown and two-pointer moments later, cutting it to 14-8.
Less than two minutes later, though, Robbins took another bobbled snap, and a frozen secondary could only watch as Karsen Neely roamed mostly free along the right sideline for a 34-yard score and a 21-8 advantage.
The Bass interception, snagged with 3:18 left before halftime, was a tip drill masterclass, and laid the foundation for a 38-yard left-side rushing score from Tavares Burgess, as well as a manageable 21-16 deficit.
Even after falling behind 42-24 in flurry of blows, the Tigers managed to make it a 10-point game just as the third quarter expired.
“We’ve got to stay disciplined,” Abren said. “The mistakes we were making? Mental mistakes? We can’t make those next game.
“We’ve got to cancel out all these mental mistakes. We’re a good team. We’re solid. We just need to combine more. Work together more. More condition. More combination of both schools, and we’ll be okay. We get all these mental mistakes out of the way, and we’ll be alright.”
One-On-One Coverage
While the Cardinals certainly have plenty to discuss this next week, including ball security at the line of scrimmage, Lopez and the Tigers know these upcoming practices will likely entail discussions about how to better defend in man-to-man coverage.
Robbins was ruthlessly effective in the second half, and just when the Tiger defense spread its wings to eliminate busted coverage, England found paydirt up the middle.
“It’s just understanding leverage,” Lopez said, a former defensive back himself. “Understanding what you’re trying to give up, and what you’re not trying to give up. Understanding that sometimes you’re going to get beat, and you can give up 15 (yards), but it just really comes down to, you know, they’re going to make plays on 50/50 balls. They made more 50/50 plays than we did. That’s how it happens.
“It’s kind of what we were willing to live with. I’m just disappointed with how it turned out on our end on some of the plays. I thought we were in good position at times. Their quarterback made some amazing throws, and their receivers made some amazing catches in traffic. Hats off to them. We kind of said, going into the game, that if they throw it like that and beat us, then so be it. I thought we battled, but came up short.”
Extra Nuggets
+ A team from Christian County has not won at War Memorial Stadium since 2005, more than two decades of futility against a team founded in 1911.
+ Abren, on the biggest lessons so far: “You can see that we’ve competed with both teams that we’ve played. It’s just mental mistakes. We get up in a game, and then something bad happens, something bad happens. We’ve got keep our integrity and keep it up. We’ve got to stay happy and positive, and keep on working.”
| MAYFIELD 49, CHRISTIAN COUNTY 32 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | 1Q | 2Q | 3Q | 4Q | Final |
| Tigers (0-2) | 0 | 16 | 16 | 0 | 32 |
| Cardinals (2-0) | 14 | 7 | 21 | 7 | 49 |
| SCORING | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| MAY | Josiah England 12-yard pass from Gray Robbins (Jason Melendez PAT) | 7-0, 8:29 1Q | |
| MAY | Drew Milliken 40-yard interception (Jason Melendez PAT) | 14-0, 0:02 1Q | |
| CCHS | Paul Abren 6-yard rush (Abren 2 PT) | 14-8, 6:26 2Q | |
| MAY | Karsen Neely 34-yard pass from Gray Robbins (Jason Melendez PAT) | 21-8, 4:34 2Q | |
| CCHS | Tavares Burgess 38-yard rush (Abren 2 PT) | 21-16, 2:23 2Q | |
| CCHS | Jasiah McCarley 19-yard interception (Abren 2 PT) | 24-21, 9:14 3Q | |
| MAY | Anderson Smith 80-yard pass from Gray Robbins (Jason Melendez PAT) | 28-24, 9:01 3Q | |
| MAY | Ashton Flint 42-yard pass from Gray Robbins (Jason Melendez PAT) | 35-24, 6:11 3Q | |
| MAY | Josiah England 63-yard rush (Jason Melendez PAT) | 42-24, 4:19 3Q | |
| CCHS | Deasian Harris 4-yard rush (Abren 2 PT) | 42-32, 0:00 3Q | |
| MAY | Josiah England 1-yard rush (Jason Melendez PAT) | 49-32, 3:28 4Q |
| RUSHING LEADERS | Att. | Yds. | TD |
|---|---|---|---|
| MAY — Josiah England | 15 | 104 | 2 |
| MAY — Gray Robbins | 6 | -12 | — |
| CCHS — Deasian Harris | 16 | 61 | 1 |
| CCHS — Jasiah McCarley | 12 | 13 | 1 |
| CCHS — Paul Abren | 5 | 20 | 1 |
| CCHS — Tavares Burgess | 3 | 55 | 1 |
| PASSING LEADERS | Comp. | Att. | Yds. | TD | INT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MAY — Gray Robbins | 18 | 27 | 314 | 4 | 1 |
| CCHS — Jasiah McCarley | 7 | 21 | 99 | 0 | 1 |
| RECEIVING LEADERS | Rec. | Yds. | TD |
|---|---|---|---|
| MAY — Ashton Flint | 9 | 112 | 1 |
| MAY — Anderson Smith | 2 | 105 | 1 |
| MAY — Karsen Neely | 3 | 55 | 1 |
| MAY — Josiah England | 1 | 12 | 1 |
| MAY — Drew Milliken | 2 | 16 | — |
| MAY — Gabriel Morris | 1 | 14 | — |
| CCHS — Jaylen Ray | 2 | 43 | — |
| CCHS — Antonio Ware | 3 | 39 | — |
| CCHS — Tristin Dillard | 1 | 9 | — |
| CCHS — Jeremiah Smith | 1 | 8 | — |
| MISCELLANEOUS | CCHS | MAY |
|---|---|---|
| Total Offense | 305 | 434 |
| Total Rushing | 168 | 97 |
| Total Passing | 99 | 314 |
| Total Net Off. | 267 | 411 |
| First Downs | 13 | 14 |
| Fumbles/Lost | 1/0 | 5/3 |
| Int. Thrown | 1 | 1 |
| Punts/Avg. | 4/33 | 0/0 |
| Penalties | 8-85 | 6-40 |
