‘Scary’ Douglass potential put on display in win over Lexington Christian
It wasn’t a perfect outing, but Frederick Douglass’s dominant 40-6 win over Class 2A No. 1 Lexington Christian showed how dangerous the Broncos are in all facets of the game.
Samuel Cornett threw for 211 yards and four touchdowns — two each to wide receivers Dane Key and Dekel Crowdus — and Darius Neal rushed for 158 yards and two more TDs, while the Douglass defense and special teams frustrated LCA with four interceptions, a fumble recovery, a recovery of a muffed punt and a blocked field goal.
“It’s an amazing experience to have all these dudes, ranked high offers and all that, but the most thing that I’d like to give, I’d like to give credit to the O-line,” said Cornett, a junior, who has thrown for four TDs or more in Douglass’s three wins. “They let Darius go to work. They let me go to work, giving me time to throw the ball down the field.”
Crowdus, a senior Kentucky commit, opened the scoring with a diving grab in the end zone in the first quarter. Later, Key, a junior whose 17 Division I offers also include UK, had an even more spectacular snare around a defender as he fell to the ground in the end zone to make it 12-0 in the second quarter.
“I just had to go make a play for my quarterback.” Key said. “We’re starting to click. And it’s going to get scary when we all start to click.”
Whenever LCA looked to be gaining its footing, Douglass defenders seemed to step in front of an Eagles pass. Isaiah Kenney, Ty Bryant, Caden Johnson and Davis Joyner each had interceptions. Johnson also had the fumble recovery. TJ Horton fell on the muffed punt.
Douglass led 19-0 at halftime after Neal’s first TD, and established a running clock-inducing 40-0 lead with 8:28 left in the game on his second.
LCA (4-1) faced an unscheduled week off due to Washington County canceling on them because of Fayette County’s former “red” COVID-19 status (which it has since improved from). Coach Doug Charles sought out Class 5A No. 3 Douglass (3-1) to fill the gap ahead of an important district contest against Somerset next week. The rankings are from the Herald-Leader’s Dave Cantrall.
“Sometimes when you’re 4-0 and everybody’s patting you on the back, you start to feel you’re pretty special,” Charles said. “But there’s always somebody bigger and badder and some things don’t go your way.”
Xavier Brown’s late TD helped the Eagles avoid the shutout, and Charles said that despite the tough loss, he believes his team will get better from it.
“The speed and the athleticism and some of the adversity we faced tonight will only be able to help us, whether it’s Somerset or Danville or whoever else,” Charles said. LCA plays the defending 2A state champion Briar Jumpers (5-0) next week. “We believe that ‘iron sharpens iron’ and if you put that on your shirts, you’ve got to live that mantra.”
Douglass had a lost fumble, an inordinate number of penalties and had some other dropped snaps, but Coach Nathan McPeek said he was pleased with the win. The Broncos face a district game against Great Crossing (1-3) next week.
“I thought we played good, physical football,” McPeek said. “We got a little too emotional at times with the penalties, so we’ve got to look at those and clean those up.”
After a tough opener against North Hardin, in which Cornett threw three interceptions, McPeek has been impressed with his 6-foot-7 junior QB’s progress. It certainly showed Friday.
“I think he saw that speed early on and he’s kind of settled in from there. He’s made some great reads,” McPeek said. “If we can fix the snap issues, I think we’re good to go.”
This story was originally published October 10, 2020 at 12:59 AM.
