LCA’s season as road warriors begins with a win. ‘We’re really proud of them.’
READ MORE
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.
Expand All
It’s not a conventional schedule, but if there is any team prepared to take on a slate with only three home games in nine outings, it could be this year’s Lexington Christian football team.
The Herald-Leader preseason Class 2A No. 4 Eagles bring back 18 starters, 10 on defense, and they passed their first road test on Saturday night with a 24-20 win over Class 3A No. 2 DeSales.
Why so many road games? Coach Doug Charles said ahead of the season, they were the only kinds of games he could get.
“Let’s just face it. When you have a lot of success, and you’ve got a program that’s coming back with 18 starters, you don’t have a lot of people lined up wanting to play you,” Charles said. “And, of course this year being ‘the COVID year’ If you want to call it, with all the unknowns, we just wanted to play games and compete and be able to get ourselves sharpened up for hopefully a deep playoff run.”
Defeating DeSales, a team many believe has a shot at a 3A state title, might not help Charles’ scheduling woes, but it was a tremendous boost for his team.
“We’re really proud of them. To go down to DeSales, who’s a class program, tradition-rich, a well-coached team with some nice pieces for sure,” Charles said after the game. “To come down there and play them on the road in misting rain, all this COVID protocol, it was strange, but it was just so good to get back to some sense of normalcy.”
Normalcy for the Eagles includes contending four the 4th District title, something they’ve been denied each of the last two years by Somerset, this year’s defending state champions.
If there is a positive for road teams during the pandemic, the restrictions on fans with many crowds absent rowdy student bodies, means home-field advantage isn’t what it could be.
“There’s really no home-field advantage from a crowd standpoint,” Charles said.
Despite all the returnees for the Eagles, they graduated their dual-threat quarterback of the last two years and are breaking in a new one with junior Drew Nieves.
Nieves showed he was up to the task Saturday against a team that is traditionally one of the toughest and specializes in sacking the quarterback. He completed 15 of 23 passes for 184 yards and two touchdowns, including a stunning double-reverse flea flicker to a wide open Mason Moore that put LCA up 14-6 early in the second quarter.
“We actually put that play in about eight days ago and we repped it two or three times per practice,” Charles said. “We finished practice with it every day. … We felt like we needed something that was a jolt … and it worked to perfection.”
Charles praised Nieves’ effort.
“I think Drew Nieves did a great job,” Charles said. “He was a big question mark … you put a kid in that environment that’s never taken a meaningful snap and to perform like he performed … “
LCA had some sloppy moments, too. Forced to punt on their first series, a fumbled snap to the punter gave DeSales the ball at the 9-yard line and set up running back James Johnson’s first score to put the Colts up 6-0. Later, a Nieves interception included an Eagles personal foul penalty and set up DeSales and Johnson deep in LCA territory again. Johnson scored on the next play from 15 yards out to cut the LCA lead to 24-20 midway through the fourth quarter.
Faced with a potential game-losing situation after a 49-yard Andrew Dobbs punt to the DeSales 26-yard line, the Eagles came up with a huge sack at midfield to complicate the Colts’ drive with under two minutes to go. Moments later, LCA swarmed DeSales quarterback James Scroggins again for a sack on fourth-and-18, forcing DeSales to turn it over on downs with under a minute left, effectively ending the game. LCA had eight sacks in all, led by Neal Dickey’s 3.5.
Even with LCA’s setbacks, its offense showed some of the form it could muster with running back Xavier Brown scoring on plays of 13 and 42 yards in the first half. Brown led the team in rushing and receiving, highlighted by his 106 receiving yards. LCA averaged 38 points per game last year, and even though the misting rain seemed to hold it back Saturday, LCA was on that pace at halftime with a 24-6 lead.
Next up, LCA enters the annual “Holy War” at Lexington Catholic. LCA has taken two out of three against their bigger-class city rival.
“We have a couple of question marks still,” Charles said. “So far, so good. We’re going to make sure in this abbreviated season that we don’t rest on our laurels.”
2020 LCA schedule
(Home games in capital letters; all games at 7:30 p.m.)
Sept. 12: At DeSales (W, 24-20)
Sept. 18: At Lexington Catholic
Sept. 25: At Williamsburg
Oct. 1: At Paul Laurence Dunbar
Oct. 9: WASHINGTON CO.
Oct. 16: At Somerset
Oct. 23: At Danville
Oct. 30: PAINTSVILLE
Nov. 6: HENRY CLAY
This story was originally published September 13, 2020 at 6:30 AM.
