Clutch plays late help Lafayette football secure 21-10 win over Dunbar
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Lafayette clinched the No. 2 seed in Class 6A’s 7th District, securing a home playoff.
- Lafayette defense limited Dunbar and Derrion Jones sealed game with pass breakup.
- Penalties, turnovers strained Lafayette, which next faces Oldham County and Bryan Station.
For the second year in a row, Lafayette football earned the No. 2 seed in Class 6A’s 7th District, which means a home playoff game when the postseason begins in two weeks.
The Generals (5-4, 2-1 in district play) did it with a sometimes halting 21-10 win Friday over Paul Laurence Dunbar in which the Generals’ toughest opponent at Ishmael Stadium seemed to be themselves.
“We have some ups and downs with execution sometimes, but, you know, we found ways to win,” Lafayette coach Jon Lawson said. “We find ways to keep working hard and doing the things we need to do. And tonight, it was a struggle here and there, but we never gave up and came out with a dub.”
Lafayette’s defense held the Bulldogs to 70 yards rushing and 79 yards passing, but many of Lafayette’s 16 penalties helped keep Dunbar drives alive.
Clinging to a 14-10 lead, Lafayette committed back-to-back penalties — including an unsportsmanlike conduct call — that helped Dunbar convert a fourth-down-and-8 into a first-and-10 at the Lafayette 31-yard line with 3:35 to play.
From there, Lafayette’s pass defense buckled down, forcing three straight incompletions to set up a fourth-and-10.
Lafayette cornerback Derrion Jones tracked Dunbar’s top receiver, Connor Norsworthy, on his go route and swatted the pass from the receiver’s arms at the goal line to turn the ball over on downs.
“I feel like I just had to do my job and pull through for my team,” Jones said. “It was very, very frustrating, but we came together, played defense and got stops.”
Lafayette scored the game-clinching touchdown on its next possession. JJ Richardson’s 6-yard TD run set the final margin with 54 seconds on the clock.
The Generals have known adversity over the past several years. When Lawson took over, Lafayette went 0-11 in 2022 and 2-9 a year later.
Last season’s 6-5 record marked the team’s first winning campaign since Lafayette went to back-to-back Class 6A championship games with future NFL players Jedrick Wills and Landon Young in the trenches in 2015 and 2016.
Friday, Lafayette turned the ball over twice in Dunbar territory in the first quarter via a fumble and then an interception. But the Bulldogs (3-6, 1-2) could only generate a 36-yard field goal by Joseph Davies from the miscues.
The 3-0 deficit sparked the Generals’ offense. Senior quarterback Jehovanis Kondo led a 10-play, 69-yard drive capped by his 1-yard TD run to put Lafayette up 7-3 with 4:03 left until halftime.
Out of the break, Kondo hit Cale Locklar with a pass over the middle that the senior wideout took up the sideline 69 yards for a touchdown and a 14-3 lead less than a minute into the third quarter.
“We just leaned on each other, man. It was a long, hard game,” Kondo said. “The offense wasn’t executing, but the defense, they kept fighting for us. They kept encouraging us, and in the end, we just made a couple more plays to seal the win.”
Dunbar responded quickly with a 41-yard kickoff return by Dominic Faulkner that was soon followed by a 38-yard TD pass from Faulkner to Norsworthy to cut the Bulldogs’ deficit to 14-10 with 8:14 left in the third quarter.
Lafayette’s next three possessions ended in a punt, a fumble and a turnover downs to set the stage for Jones’ game-saving pass breakup.
Lafayette hosts Oldham County (5-4) next week and then will welcome Bryan Station (4-5) in the first round of the Class 6A playoffs. Both of those teams have been ranked in the Kentucky High School Football Media Poll top 10 at various points this season.
Lawson acknowledged those games will be difficult.
“We just need to continue to focus on ourselves,” Lawson said. “We really need to work on the things that we need to get better at and then come out here and execute those things every week. If we do that, we’ve always got a chance to win. And I believe in my guys. We’re going to move forward doing that.”
Friday’s other Lexington games
Frederick Douglass 41, George Rogers Clark 7: An 88-yard blocked field goal return for a touchdown by Tacori Fields and a 36-yard pick six by Phillip Higgins helped the Broncos (6-3, 3-0) sweep their 8th District rivals and claim their sixth straight win.
The defensive scores combined with TD runs by Dakari Talbert and Jermiah Turner and a short TD pass from Jayden Guzman to Terry Cayson for a 34-0 lead in just over three quarters of play. Jeremiah Brown had Douglass’ final touchdown run.
Douglass, Class 6A’s No. 5 team, will host Class 4A No. 1 Boyle County on Friday to close the regular season.
Madison Central 43, Bryan Station 14: The Indians (6-3, 2-1) scored 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to pull away from the Defenders (4-5, 1-2) and claim the No. 2 seed in Class 6A’s 8th District.
A 24-yard fumble recovery for a touchdown by Madison Central’s William Snell with 7:58 to play put the game out of reach. Bryan Station scored on a pair of TD passes from Coleson Carpenter to Karmai Barbour.
Tates Creek 41, Henry Clay 12: The Commodores (4-5, 3-0) opened with a 78-yard TD pass from Darnell Burnside to Triston Taylor on the first play from scrimmage and rolled to their third straight win.
Burnside finished with 254 yards and four TDs passing. Taylor caught three of those among his 148 yards receiving. Luke Cooper caught the other, a 33-yard strike. BJ Evans also broke a 66-yard TD run for Tates Creek.
Henry Clay (1-8, 0-3) avoided a running-clock margin with scores from Chaii Paris on a 10-yard pick-six and Isaiah King on an 18-yard run.
Lexington Christian 38, Washington County 8: The Eagles (6-3, 4-0) established a running-clock margin midway through the third quarter on a pair of TD runs by Daven Hood, a 42-yard scoring pass from Nash Whelan to Sam Pearson and rushing scores by Conrad Hart, Jaxon Ramsey to go with a 27-yard Dean Hester field goal.
Lexington Catholic 47, Casey County 0: The Knights (7-2, 4-0) remained unbeaten in district play since moving to Class 3A in 2022. The rout included a short TD trick play run by offensive lineman Jacob Dudek, a 50-yard punt return for a touchdown by Baird Woodall and a 25-yard pick-six by Ethan Bradford.
Sayre 56, Eminence 0: The Spartans (8-1, 3-0) established a 35-0 running-clock margin 48 seconds into the second quarter on Jackson Stuart’s 50-yard scoop-and-score fumble recovery. Gage Pennington threw TD passes of 15 yards to Stuart, 52 yards to John Luke Minner and 33 yards to AJ Corrigan in addition to a rushing TD.
