Kentucky commits go toe-to-toe, but a kicker steals the show in Lexington showdown
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2020 Kentucky high school football preview
The 2020 high school football season kicked off Friday, Sept. 11. High school sports beat writer Jared Peck wrote numerous stories in the Herald-Leader and on Kentucky.com previewing the season around the city, region and state and highlighting the top players and games and rankings. Click below to read all of his stories in case you missed any of them.
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Four University of Kentucky commits and at least as many other players in whom the Wildcats have expressed interest took to the field when Frederick Douglass hosted North Hardin in one of the state’s premiere match-ups to kick off the 2020 season.
All were factors, but the biggest turned out to be a junior on loan from the soccer team. Cayden Logsdon, veins chilled to below 32 degrees, kicked a game-winning field goal from about 25 yards out to give North Hardin a 19-17 victory over the Broncos on Friday night.
Douglass was the No. 2 team in the Herald-Leader’s preseason Class 5A rankings, voted on by the state’s coaches. North Hardin was ranked No. 4 in the Class 6A preseason poll. It was the first meeting between the programs.
Logsdon was 2-for-2 on field-goal attempts; the first gave the Trojans additional breathing room at 16-10 with 5:56 to play in the fourth quarter before the Broncos responded with a drive, capped by a Darius Neal touchdown at the goal line, to take their first lead in the second half, 17-16.
A tip-toe catch along the sideline by Camron Smith gave way to a bowling ball-like rush by La’Vell Wright, a senior running back who’s committed to the Wildcats, to put the Trojans within field-goal range with four seconds left. Douglass called a timeout in an attempt to unnerve Logsdon before his game-winning try; it might have affected the snap, bobbled and corralled by Smith, but Logsdon was unfazed.
“There’s ice in his veins,” North Hardin head coach Brent Thompson said. “I tried to tell ‘em when they call timeouts, in soccer, he don’t know what timeouts are. He has no clue what they are so they don’t matter to him.”
It was Logsdon’s first game-winning field goal. He compared his nerves in the moment to kicking penalty kicks during shootouts on the soccer pitch.
“It feels very exciting,” Logsdon said. “ ... I felt a lot of pressure but I go through it in soccer all the time so I was used to it.”
North Hardin came up empty on offense for most of the first half and found itself down 2-0 early after a sack by Douglass’ Romarion Warner in the end zone. A pick-six soon thereafter gave North Hardin its first lead, 6-2, before Douglass responded with a touchdown (Neal’s first) and two-point run by Jager Burton, a four-star offensive guard who recently committed to UK over Ohio State, Alabama and Clemson.
Smith put the Trojans in front right before the break with a TD reception of about 10 yards from Manie Wimberly. They were within scoring range thanks to Wright, who heaved a 50-yard pass downfield off a toss back from Wimberly a couple plays earlier.
Wright never scored himself, but his impact was all over the victory. It was felt most on his only carry of the final possession, on which he broke five tackles to gain about 20 yards and give Logsdon a chance to seal the deal.
“I just saw the linebacker, he was not up on the outside, and I knew I had to make either two moves or one move to get into that field-goal range, and I did exactly that,” Wright said.
Two Kentucky commits were going to walk away happy regardless of which team won — Wright is joined by safety Jordan Lovett while Burton is coming along with receiver Dekel Crowdus — but it was the boys from Radcliff who left with bragging rights the first weekend of the season.
“They’re gettin’ all the trash talk when I get home,” Wright said with a laugh.
This story was originally published September 12, 2020 at 12:17 AM.
