South Warren upsets Kentucky’s No. 1 team in last game of HS football season

A trio of defensive plays — including a controversial fumble recovery inside the final minutes — helped South Warren score the biggest upset in this year’s Kentucky high school football championship weekend.

The Spartans defeated Covington Catholic, 20-16, in the finals of the Class 5A KHSAA Commonwealth Gridiron Bowl on Sunday at Kroger Field. They improved to 2-1 in championship appearances while handing the Colonels their first finals loss in eight showings.

Catholic had an opportunity to complete a late rally. On 4th-and-5 with 1:08 to play, South Warren purposely took a safety to give itself more room to kick. The Colonels started from the Spartans’ 41 and drove to the 24, but their comeback bid ended with three straight incomplete passes. South Warren lined up in victory formation with three seconds left to knock off the state’s top-ranked team — regardless of class — entering the postseason.

“If you got to take down the best, it’s gonna be a challenge, and these guys rose to it,” South Warren Coach Brandon Smith said. “They rose to it the whole day and I couldn’t be more proud of ’em. The whole second half, after 20 to nothing, I felt like I was gonna have a stroke there the last 30 seconds. But those guys came through.”

South Warren took the lead, 6-0, on a 43-yard pass from Gavin Spurrier to sophomore Jantzsen Dunn with 2:08 to play in the first quarter (the PAT failed). It then recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff at the Colonels’ 36-yard line; the Spartans turned that into seven more points on an 11-yard completion from Spurrier to Caleb Lloyd with eight seconds to play in the opening frame. The Spartans didn’t score again in the first half but kept Covington Catholic from crossing midfield and held the Colonels to only three first downs through the first 24 minutes.

“That first drive, we didn’t score but we showed ’em that we’re here to play and we weren’t scared of ’em,” said Spurrier, the grandson of legendary football coach Steve Spurrier. “Our defense got clutch stops in that first half and we were ever to translate them into points.”

Covington Catholic reached the South Warren 36-yard line on its first possession of the second half but elected to punt on 4th-and-8; South Warren’s Tre Teague blocked it and returned it to CovCath’s 10-yard line, from where the Spartans capitalized two plays later to go up 20-0 with 9:36 left in the third quarter.

CovCath answered immediately — sophomore Caleb Jacob completed successive passes of 23 yards (to Casey McGinness) and 58 yards (to Notre Dame commit Michael Mayer) to bring the Colonels within 20-7. McGinness rushed 77 yards for a second CovCath TD with 10:34 to play in the game to bring it within a possession.

South Warren chewed up four minutes of clock on its next possession but failed to convert on a fourth-down try at CovCath’s 40. The Colonels got all the way down to the Spartans’ 9-yard line but McGinness lost a fumble at the five, which was recovered by South Warren’s Rowdy Shea with 3:06 to play.

Some observers believed McGinness’s run should have been whistled dead before the fumble occurred; a swarm of teammates and defenders developed around the running back, but the officials allowed play to continue without stoppage.

“It’s one of those things,” CovCath Coach Eddie Eviston said. “I can’t control that, and that’s what we teach our kids. Worry about the things we can control and, so, I give credit to South Warren. They had a great game plan.”

Did Smith think the run was allowed to go on too long?

“Nah, I thought it was a great call,” Smith said with a laugh. “Great call.”

Spurrier was 17 of 30 for 237 yards with the two TD throws. He’ll walk on at Duke, where his grandfather once coached.

Jacob Lacey — a Notre Dame commit — anchored a defensive front that held McGinness, the Class 5A Player of the Year, to 18 yards on 15 carries outside of his 77-yard scoring punch. CovCath rushed for only 85 yards as a team.

“They hadn’t been punched in the mouth, really, all season,” Lacey said. “We punched ’em in the mouth and they responded well. But we just held together and didn’t break.”

This story was originally published December 2, 2018 at 5:39 PM.