Lexington Christian purges Kroger Field curse with win over Owensboro Catholic
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- Lexington Christian shook off Kroger Field woes and won the Class 2A title 33-28.
- Sophomore QB Nash Whelan delivered MVP plays, passing and rushing for scores.
- Eagles defense made key plays early to help offense get off to head start.
Behind an MVP performance by its sophomore quarterback and a lockdown defensive effort early against one of the state’s most prolific offenses, Lexington Christian exorcised its Kroger Field demons and captured Kentucky high school football’s Class 2A state championship with a 33-28 win Friday over Owensboro Catholic.
The home of the University of Kentucky football Wildcats had not been kind to LCA’s Eagles over the years. And there were a couple of ill omens in the first half when LCA kicker Dean Hester missed both an extra point and a 37-yard field goal attempt as the ball clanged off the left upright.
LCA’s 2020 and 2021 finals losses to Beechwood at Kroger Field owed partially to kicking-game woes. A potential game-winning kick at the end of regulation in 2020 also hit the college-width upright. An extra point in 2021 got blocked to end the other title loss.
This time, however, under first-year head coach and longtime offensive coordinator Oakley Watkins, LCA shrugged off its bad luck and made sure Owensboro Catholic stretched its own state runner-up streak to three in a row and seven overall in the UK HealthCare Sports Medicine State Football Finals.
“I’ve been at LCA for 12 years, and we have been knocking on the door for a long time,” said Watkins, who took over the Eagles this season upon the head coaching retirement of Doug Charles, the coach for LCA’s past two state finals appearances. “This program is bigger than one person. It’s bigger than me. It’s bigger than these players. And that’s something for us that really showed on the big stage. Our kids really battled, no matter what happened.”
LCA dealt adversity to Owensboro Catholic early.
The Eagles jumped to a 13-0 lead thanks in part to their defense forcing three-and-outs on Owensboro Catholic’s first two possessions. That gave LCA good field position for drives finished by 2-yard TD runs from Daven Hood and then Nash Whelan.
After the two-touchdown spot, LCA and Owensboro Catholic, one of Class 2A’s highest scoring offenses all year, traded scores the rest of the way.
“I think our defense came out in the first half and really shut them down early, and that really propelled our offense and got us position to score,” said Whelan, LCA’s most valuable player, who threw TD passes of 35 yards to Sam Pearson to open the second half and 4 yards to Conrad Hart in the fourth quarter to go with his first-half TD runs of 2 and 18 yards.
LCA picked off Owensboro Catholic quarterback Dre’Mail Carothers as the Aces threatened to score in each half, first with a pick at LCA’s own 5-yard line in the second quarter by Sam Pearson and then, with a Hood interception in the end zone in the third quarter.
But Owensboro Catholic’s defense quickly turned LCA’s bad field positions out of those turnovers into short fields. The first interception led to a wobbly punt downed at LCA’s own 27. The second led to a blocked punt for possession at LCA’s 15. Though the Aces scored each time, the extra effort cost Owensboro Catholic time and momentum.
“Most of the time it comes down to the turnover battle,” Owensboro Catholic coach Jason Morris said. “And then third down. They had two or three third-and-11 and third-and-12 where they made really good plays, and we cannot let the football get thrown over our heads in those situations.”
Unfortunately for the Aces, they lost leading rusher and second-leader tackler Miles Edge to an injury in the first quarter.
“We could’ve easily laid down and let Lexington Christian blow us out of here,” Morris said. “We came down and had a chance in the fourth quarter to win, and that’s all I could ask my players to do, is to keep fighting.”
A Whelan fumble in the third quarter squandered an opportunity for LCA to pad its lead. But the Eagles took that miscue in stride like the others.
“This team has no quit in us,” senior wideout Tyler King said. “I mean, it’s just something Coach says every day: ‘Adversity is going to hit. It’s how you respond.’ It’s ‘play the next play.’”
Watkins credited defensive coordinator Mattie Lebryk and his staff for the game plan that helped keep Owensboro Catholic off balance. It was a full circle moment for Lebryk, a senior linebacker and leading tackler for LCA’s 2020 runner-up team.
“We’ve got probably the youngest defense coordinator in the state of Kentucky,” Watkins said, noting his assistants “put together a great plan that kind of mixed up some coverages. And we wanted to try and keep (Carothers) off the field a little bit. ... We were just trying to make it as uncomfortable as we possibly could.”
Carothers threw for 223 yards and three touchdowns. Jude Evans also had a 2-yard TD run. Xavier Maddox nabbed one touchdown catch in each half. His second, a 13-yard strike from Carothers on fourth-and-2, helped the Aces cut LCA’s lead to the final margin with 3:18 to play.
Despite failing to recover the ensuing onside kick, Owensboro Catholic managed to get LCA to punt it away with 49 seconds left.
LCA’s defense then forced four straight Carothers incompletions to win the ball back and take a knee in the victory formation.
The win gave LCA its second football state championship in five appearances. The Eagles won the Class A title in 2009.
This story was originally published December 5, 2025 at 11:46 PM.
