‘We’ve got to go out here and prove it.’ Lexington Christian topples another No. 1.
Mason Moore’s second outing as Lexington Christian’s starting quarterback did not start as smoothly as his first.
He fumbled the ball away twice in the first half, killing drives and giving Class 3A No. 1 Christian Academy-Louisville opportunities to seize the initiative. LCA held a slim 9-7 lead at halftime.
“We had to come out and exert our will,” LCA Coach Doug Charles said of the Eagles’ mentality at halftime. “And if we are who they say we are, then we’ve got to go out here and prove it. Because there’s nowhere to hide, you know. There’s no trees or bushes or anything. We got to go out there and not hide or we’re gonna get exposed tonight.”
Moore and his LCA teammates made amends.
Moore scored three TDs in the third quarter, one passing, one rushing and another on a blocked punt he plucked from the air and ran in from 35 yards out as the Class 2A No. 2 Eagles rallied to rout the Centurions, 37-14.
“There’s a lot of hype on Beechwood or Mayfield or a lot of these other teams, but we’re just playing our own football,” said Moore, who got his first varsity start in place of an injured Drew Nieves in a 35-28 win over Boyle County two weeks ago. “We’re playing within ourselves. I like what’s in our bus, like Coach Doug (Charles) says. They always tell us to play the next play. Keep a short memory. As long as we just keep to what we do and not reflect on what (bad) happened, we win.”
But as for the early going, “It was rough,” Moore said.
After taking their first possession down the field capped by a 26-yard Xavier Brown TD run, LCA allowed CAL to answer with a go-ahead score on Gavin Coperhaver’s 13-yard touchdown carry. CAL led 7-6 after a quarter of play.
It took time for the Eagles to adjust to CAL’s new, tightly piled synthetic turf. A slip caused the usually dead-eye Andrew Dobbs to miss LCA’s first extra point.
But Dobbs made no mistake in nailing a go-ahead 17-yard field goal to put LCA up 9-7 as the clock ran out on the first half. The drive that led to that field goal began on the LCA 40 with 1:10 left in the second quarter.
“We came out (at halftime) with the lead, which gave us a little momentum,” Moore said. Some halftime film study showed LCA what it needed to clean up. “We were like, ‘We can beat this team.’ And we came out and capitalized on their mistakes.
LCA took the opening drive of the second half down to the 6-yard line where Moore rolled out and performed a Tim Tebow-like jump pass to Jeffrey Selby for a TD with 8:30 left in the third quarter.
Parker Chaney quickly followed with an interception of CAL quarterback Cole Hodge that gave LCA the ball on the Centurions’ 31-yard line. Moore walked in a 1-yard score at the 4:20 mark in the third.
Then came a high snap over CAL’s punter on the next possession. Jackson Barrickman was able to gather it, but the scramble gave LCA’s Elijah Hammond time to close in and get a piece of the kick, setting up Moore’s last score and a 30-7 lead with still 48 seconds to play in the third quarter.
LCA added another rushing score by Jeremiah Riffle after another misplayed punt by the Centurions.
“I think the first part of the second half really helped us after not playing good in the first half,” said Xavier Brown, who finished with 91 yards and helped keep one of LCA’s third quarter drives alive after a penalty by breaking a pair of runs that turned a second-down-and-17 into a first down deep in CAL territory. “Coming out and scoring and then getting a turnover really pushed us through.”
CAL Coach Hunter Cantwell said he meant for his young team to get a test like this and he believes his Centurions will learn from it.
“LCA is a heck of a ball club for sure,” Cantwell said. “And we showed for two quarters we could play with that team. We didn’t come out and execute like we needed in the second half and the wheels fell off so to speak. … We’re going to use this as a growth opportunity and fix the things that need to be fixed and take steps forward next week.”
The early adversity helped LCA, too, Coach Charles said.
“We’re a solid football team, but he can’t help beat us by doing self-inflicted stuff,” the LCA coach said. “We’ve got to be clean. We’ve got to watch our penalties. And we had just some mental errors. … I’m pretty happy with a win, but our boys have got to be a little more composed.”
With games against undefeated rival Lexington Catholic and Class A No. 1 Pikeville coming in the next two weeks, LCA will need all the composure it can muster.
“The next two weeks are going to be outright street fight wars is what they’re going to be,” Charles said.
This story was originally published September 11, 2021 at 8:55 AM.
