Streak ends: No. 2 Lexington Catholic topples No. 1 Boyle County with fourth-quarter rally
Lexington Catholic has long been regarded as one of the best high school football programs in the state.
There has just been one problem: Class 4A No. 1 Boyle County’s been better — nine wins in a row better in their series, back-to-back 4A titles better out of their same district, and 10 state championships better to No. 2 Lexington Catholic’s two all-time.
On Friday, however, the Knights’ defense put its foot in the ground and its offense put its faith on the arm of junior quarterback Jackson Wasik and LexCath declared all that prologue meaningless for one glorious game.
Make that one glorious quarter.
Lexington Catholic scored 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter, capped by Wasik’s 53-yard touchdown strike to Sam Clements with 2:07 left to play to help lift the Knights to a stunning 28-27 win at home and snap the Rebels’ 19-game win streak overall and nine-game win streak in their district rivalry.
“We just played amazing, both sides, offense and defense,” Wasik said. “We took shots. We got them and we made the best of our opportunity.”
Fourth down fade starts the comeback
Trailing 27-7 entering the fourth quarter, Lexington Catholic began racking up big plays on offense and defense to get back in it.
First came a 12-play, 80-yard drive capped by a fourth-and-9 fade toss from the 11-yard line completed from Wasik to Hunter Foster in the left corner of the end zone. After the extra point, the score cut the Rebels’ lead to 27-14 with 10:37 to play. Foster made the tough grab through a pass interference foul that was declined.
“We had been practicing it for the last two weeks and we knew we were going to call it. Jackson had confidence in me,” Foster said. “I just knew I could have it.”
The Knights’ defense hadn’t stopped Boyle County’s attack all night, allowing scores on all four of the Rebels’ possessions to that point. Boyle burned more than five minutes off the clock, but it had to punt from midfield on its first possession of the fourth quarter.
Wasik led the Knights down the field again, this time in eight plays covering 78 yards, capped by a 9-yard TD pass to Corbin Perry.
The drive took only 2:30 off the clock but it didn’t leave much time to complete the comeback, especially after Boyle recovered the ensuing onside kick at LexCath’s 49-yard line with 2:46 left to play.
But the Knights had all of their timeouts, and their defense rose up again.
Boyle takes risk at midfield
“We play really good complementary football. And when our offense started making some plays, I think our defense started feeling it a little bit,” LexCath Coach Bert Bathiany said.
Three Boyle County running plays generated only 5 yards. Facing a fourth-and-5 at Lexington Catholic’s 44-yard line, Rebels Coach Justin Haddix decided to go for it. LexCath’s Matthew Kern dragged Boyle’s Montavin Quisenberry down short of the line to gain. LexCath got the ball back with 2:23 to play at its own 41-yard line.
Quisenberry had scored the game’s first touchdown on a 55-yard run. He scored Boyle County’s final TD from 4 yards out. Avery Bodner had the other rushing TD and the running game had done well against LexCath, gaining nearly 200 yards.
“We thought, ‘Let’s finish it on offense.’ We’re there. We end up missing it by a yard or a half a yard on our sideline,” said Haddix, whose team had an extra point blocked after its third score. “Those are things we’re going to live with. There’s a lot more plays besides that one that cost it. But I’ll take that one all day long on me.”
Wasik’s last big throw
Two plays later, Wasik found Clements sprinting clear up the middle of the field.
“We were running comeback (patterns), so we thought we were just going to get it down and keep going, but we saw him wide-open across the middle and we were like ‘holy crap,’” said Foster, who ran one of the short routes that gave him a good view of the 53-yard play developing. “When he scored, we just went crazy. I can’t believe it.”
Wasik kept his eyes left toward the sideline, but he spotted Clements and how he was covered. He had only one thought when he let it go.
“‘Touchdown,’” Wasik said. Doubt never entered into it. “I was not nervous. God got me right and I was locked in for the drive to win the game.”
Wasik measures at 5-foot-7, 130 pounds on LexCath’s roster. Obviously, he played bigger than that, completing 23 of 29 passes for 278 yards, three TDs and an interception. Wasik also had a scrambling 4-yard touchdown to cap a long drive to cut Boyle’s lead to 20-7 near the end of the first half.
“He’s a stud. He has the heart of a lion. He’s a champion,” Bathiany said, gushing. “People keep downplaying him. But this team believes in him and you could see it from the very beginning. That’s why he won the starting quarterback job. That’s why he’s playing so well. You just can’t count him out.”
Though 2:07 remained in the game for Boyle County to mount its own comeback, the Rebels had only one timeout when their drive started at their own 20 after Max DeGraff’s touchback kick. It took eight plays and 1:47 off the clock for Boyle to reach midfield.
An illegal motion penalty negated what would have been a game-winning touchdown pass from Dawson to Quisenberry. The illegal play took another 12 seconds off the clock. With five seconds left, Dawson’s last-gasp heave was batted down and intercepted by Max Bertrand.
“They made plays in the second half more than us. … When you play good people, this is going to happen,” Haddix said. “Honestly, anytime we do something and take a loss, we took a loss last year, we came back from it. Our kids are going to respond.”
Bathiany said his team knew outsiders counted his team out against the Rebels (6-1, 0-1), a team ranked No. 2 in the state overall this week by Dave Cantrall to LexCath’s No. 7 ranking. Friday’s win does more than give the Knights (6-1, 1-0) a leg up on a district championship.
“More than anything, I think it gives our team and our community belief,” he said. “We knew what we could do coming into this game, but no one else outside of us did. That’s a fact. No one believed that we were going to be able to do this. Our kids did. I think that people now see that these guys are not to be messed with.”
But Bathiany knows the win also sets the stage for a potential rematch with Boyle County in the postseason and means no one will be sleeping on his team from here out.
“Now we have that target on our back. How do we handle the success?” Bathiany asked, rhetorically. “We’re going to face that team again, and they’re going to be motivated. We’ll be motivated, too.”
This story was originally published October 8, 2022 at 2:33 AM.
