‘This is what we are supposed to do.’ Berea gets first football win in 4 years

Berea Community High School no longer owns one of the longest-running winless streaks in Kentucky high school football.

The Pirates traveled to Jellico (Tenn.) and left with an 18-0 victory on Friday night. Freshman Jaiden Cunningham scored twice on the ground to lead the Pirates, who also got a TD run from Cody Moore, in their first win since Oct. 10, 2014. They snapped a 43-game losing streak.

“The stars aligned and the tectonic plates must have shifted a different way,” Pirates Coach Aaron Stepp said with a laugh. “We had a good time.”

Jellico was 1-8 entering the game but they had a significant size advantage over Berea (1-9).

“They may be the biggest football team I’ve ever seen,” Stepp said. “Up front they were like 6-4, 280, 6-6, 300. They had three kids who were three of the biggest kids I’ve seen in high school ever. Just monsters.”

As for Berea?

“I don’t have any. That’s the problem,” Stepp said with a laugh. “I was watching film and I was like, ‘God all mighty, I don’t think we can even line up with these guys.’”

It was “nasty,” Stepp said, and he thought the weather conditions aided Berea’s upset effort. “All eight or nine” of the fans who traveled for the game were thrilled, Stepp joked.

He pulled his kids aside during a Jellico timeout late in the game for some serious talk.

“I said, look, ‘This is what we are supposed to do,’” Stepp said. “This is not an anomaly, this is not an enigma. We are doing exactly what we’ve been telling you that your job is all year, so act like you’ve done it before even though you have not because it will not be the last time that you do it. Even though it is the first time in a long time, it will most certainly not be the last time.”

Berea went 4-7 in 2014 before losing all of its games in the 2015, 2016 and 2017 seasons. It’s losing streak at the start of the season was 34 games, just two fewer than that of Shawnee, a Class 2A program in Louisville. Shawnee’s streak worsened to 45 games after a 13-12 home loss to Fort Knox on Friday; the Golden Eagles travel to Newport Central Catholic in the first round of the playoffs next week.

The Pirates removed themselves from postseason contention voluntarily before the season, so they’ll start next year on a one-game win streak.

“You’ve kind of got a big monkey off your back but understand that going forward, you’re gonna do your job every Friday night,” Stepp said. “That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

Stepp, in his first year leading Berea, wrote a later admonishing the Pirates’ placement in the latest KHSAA realignment that went viral in May.

This story was originally published October 27, 2018 at 12:07 AM.