Class A championship: In its 100th season, Paintsville claims its first state title
Paintsville High School has played football for 100 years. It’s gotten pretty good at knocking at the door for a state title only to be hit in the face when it swung open.
Finally, Paintsville’s wrath was felt.
One year after having their tails handed to them by a familiar rival in the title game, the Tigers used their size and know-how to topple Kentucky Country Day, 38-7, in the UK Orthopaedic/KHSAA Class A State Football Championship on Friday. After going home empty after three previous final appearances, Paintsville took the crown, and in doing so became the first Class A program to win a KHSAA state championship in all three major boys’ sports: baseball, basketball and football.
CLASS A BOX SCORE: Paintsville 38, Kentucky Country Day 7
It was the first of six finals scheduled to be played at Kroger Field this weekend. A COVID reduced-capacity crowd of 3,181 fans watched Paintsville rack up 303 rushing yards on 46 carries, the bulk of them coming from Harris Phelps. The sophomore finished with 221 yards and a touchdown on 22 touches en route to game MVP recognition.
“We wouldn’t be here without God,” Phelps said. “We were just blessed to be in this position to come out and win.”
Jake Hyden, a senior, scored three times for the Tigers and added 35 yards. Luke Hyden (26 yards) and Karsten Poe (21 yards) added the remainder. Poe also completed Paintsville’s only two pass attempts, both to Zach Taylor, for 15 yards.
Paintsville played for state championships twice before head coach Joe Chirico took over, in 1978 and 1985, each time losing by a single possession. Chirico in 2013 inherited a program coming off four straight losing seasons and that hadn’t won a playoff game since 2008. The Tigers finished 8-4 and made the second round of the postseason his first year in charge.
Since then the Tigers have finished with no less than 10 wins in any season of his tenure; Friday’s victory gave them victory No. 10 in a season whose schedule was shortened and often shuffled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The program in that span has produced several college players, including a few Division I standouts, most notably former University of Kentucky star Kash Daniel, the state’s 2015 Mr. Football winner.
“I take zero credit in this,” Chirico said. “My staff, the players, they all deserve every bit of the credit, not me. I’m just the guy who got to be the head coach.”
Their first title-game berth under Chirico came last year, when fellow eastern Kentucky stalwart Pikeville rocked them, 43-0. The two didn’t meet this season — Hazard upset the Panthers in this year’s playoffs to prevent a third-round duel — but Paintsville in the second round did get revenge against Raceland, to whom it suffered a regular-season loss and the program that in 2017 and 2018 kept it from advancing further.
Following that game — a 28-21 overtime victory — the Tigers gave up only 21 total points through the remainder of this postseason. They would have pitched a shutout in the finals had KCD not connected on a 21-yard pass a few minutes into the third quarter to set up its only scoring drive.
The Bearcats turned the ball over on downs three times in the first half, once inside Paintsville’s 30-yard line, and saw five of their drives end in that fashion. They punted once, had time run out on them in the first half and saw a fourth-quarter fumble get scooped up by Paintsville’s Devin Hall for a 33-yard touchdown to put a cherry on its big day.
Paintsville’s size up front was a major difference-maker, but so was the fact that it had been on this stage before, even despite coming up short. KCD’s football life span has also been much shorter; the Bearcats less than 20 years ago were playing an eight-man variant of the sport.
“I don’t think you can win the state championship until you’ve been there and you’ve seen it, until you’ve been in this atmosphere, until you’ve had a chance to coach and play here” KCD Coach Matthew Jones said. “I hope that, even my young kids, my little fifth- and sixth-graders that are playing football, that they’re excited and want to come back here.”
State football championships
Where: Kroger Field
Tickets: Available by advance sale at KHSAA.org. No walk-up sales.
Online: Subscription required for live video stream at KHSAA.tv. Free audio stream at KHSAA.net
FRIDAY’S GAMES
Class A: Paintsville 38, Kentucky Country Day 7
Class 2A: Beechwood 24, Lexington Christian 23 (OT)
Class 4A: Boyle County (10-0) vs. Franklin County (9-1), late
SATURDAY’S GAMES
Class 3A: Elizabethtown (12-0) vs. Ashland Blazer (10-0), 11 a.m.
Class 5A: Owensboro (12-0) vs. Bowling Green (9-2), 3 p.m.
Class 6A: Trinity (9-0) vs. Male (8-1), 7 p.m.
This story was originally published December 18, 2020 at 3:41 PM.
