Owensboro stayed hot with junior quarterback Kasey Boone at the helm of the offense and a strong defensive performance backing him, defeating Owensboro Catholic 35-7.
Owensboro Catholic came into the game looking to pull off an upset as the underdog and got right to work offensively.
The Aces found themselves in scoring position after senior Braden Mundy bobbled a pass before controlling it for a 26-yard gain. However, sitting with first and goal at the five-yard line, Owensboro’s defense beared down.
Owensboro Catholic Head Coach Jason Morris said that they came into the game fired up and were focused on playing their game offensively.
“It was just to be us and get back to just being who we are,” Morris said. “We can’t let the defense dictate who we want to be.”
A big sack moved Owensboro Catholic to the 17 for third and goal and then the Red Devils forced a field goal attempt by the Aces. The kick was short and well wide, giving Owensboro the ball at the 20.
A big fourth down conversion by junior Kenyatta Carbon proved crucial, as he later capped off the drive with a 23-yard rushing touchdown to put the Red Devils up 7-0 with 4:15 left in the first quarter. This didn’t deter the Aces, as they answered swiftly on the following drive.
Senior quarterback Lincoln Clancy found Mundy wide open in the middle of the field and he turned it into a 56-yard touchdown to knot things up at 7-7 with 3:24 left in the first quarter.
Both teams trade possession back and forth for the rest of the quarter, making it a 7-7 game going into the second.
With Owensboro set up at midfield to start the second quarter, junior quarterback Kasey Boone led the team down the field.
After taking it to the one to make it fourth and goal, Boone handed it off to senior Tramel Barksdale who bullied his way into the endzone.
The one-yard rushing touchdown gave Owensboro a 14-7 lead with 2:38 left in the first half—a lead they would carry into halftime.
With everything going their way, the Red Devils got off to a rough start in the second half. After getting a first down, Carbon went down on the play and did not return.
Carbon has been a focal point of the offense responsible for nine touchdowns in the last three games.
A timetable for his injury was not given, but his left leg was wrapped and he was on crutches on the sideline.
“I don’t want to speculate,” said Owensboro Head Coach Jay Fallin. “Doc wants to get an MRI and we’ll go from there. We’ll take it a week at a time.”
Regardless, the Red Devils kept chugging offensively. Boone was starting to come into his own as the first half ended and he carried that over into the second.
A 23-yard gain put them on the seven and then Boone found junior Ethan Pendleton on a seven-yard slant for the touchdown to give the Red Devils a 21-7 lead.
Owensboro Catholic was playing solid defensively throughout the third quarter, forcing multiple drives with no scoring by the Red Devils and nabbing an interception.
However, this didn’t turn into offense for the Aces thanks to Owensboro continually forcing turnovers on downs.
This allowed the Red Devils to capitalize early in the fourth quarter as Boone found junior Khalil Rogers for a 25-yard touchdown to make it 28-7 with 10:33 to play.
Less than 20 seconds later Owensboro’s defense created offense, as senior Maurice Moorman picked a pass off and took it 55 yards to the house to make it 35-7 with 10:13 to play.
Neither offense found the endzone again, marking the pick-six as the nail in the coffin, giving the Red Devils a 35-7 victory.
Per usual, Owensboro had established a solid running game, as Carbon and Barksdale combined for 235 rushing yards.
Barksdale had 141 yards on 19 carries to go with a rushing touchdown, while Carbon had 94 yards on 11 carries to go with a rushing touchdown before exiting the game.
Fallin said they wanted to establish a run game early so Boone would be able to relax and have some pressure taken off of him.
This seemed to work tenfold, as Boone progressively got more comfortable as the game went along.
Fallin said Boone has been a very good quarterback in a situation where he knew he probably wouldn’t start until his senior barring injury or early departure at his position. He never complained once and stepped up big when his number was called.
“I thought he did a really good job of stepping up in the pocket and delivering the ball downfield,” Fallin said. “The interception, he hit the guy right in the hands and it just popped out.”
Fallin said he very easily could’ve ended 10-14 on the night with close to 200 yards had the ball not been intercepted, but he officially ended with 140 passing yards on 9-13 attempts to go along with his two passing touchdowns.
Boone had started completing longer passes towards the second half thanks to something he and the coaching staff noticed that they were able to expose.
“They started stacking the box,” Boone said. “So we knew scheme-wise that we could beat them over the top, so we had some good play calls to beat them over the top.”
Defensively the Red Devils were very strong as well, forcing four interceptions on the night, with two coming from Rogers.
After a solid start to the game offensively, Morris said the Aces shot themselves in the foot a few times to kill their momentum.
“We made some big plays on them, but we weren’t sustaining drives,” Morris said. “That happens against a team that’s solid like Owensboro… We gotta do a better job on third and short and second and short of staying in front of the chains. We’ll have a holding penalty, or a bad snap, or a receiver will run a wrong route, or some kind of self-inflicting wound to where it’s us self-destructing and not the defense having to earn it. That’s where we gotta fix it the most.”
While there were multiple times Owensboro almost allowed the Aces to score, Fallin was pleased with his defense’s performance and growth throughout the game.
“We grew up a ton tonight,” Fallin said. “Had sort of a bend don’t break [outing] because they did get in the redzone a couple of times. A couple of times that was the fault of the offense, but we found a way to make some plays we had to make to keep it at just one touchdown.”
Despite the score not being on their side, the Aces fought to the end and Fallin said that Catholic has improved immensely each week, noting that Morris is a great coach and puts his team in position to fight for a win every night.
Morris agreed with the notion regarding the team’s improvement, saying that he and the team will continue to get stronger and not let their record dictate who they are.
“We’re getting better every single week,” Morris said. “I’m not going to say anything negative about my team right now. I told you all this entire time I really like this team. We’re going to have to have some thick skin getting through this early part of the schedule, but in the end I’m hoping it’s for the best for our team because I think it’s gonna make us the best team we can be.”
They will look to grab its first win of the season at home against Christian Academy-Louisville next Friday, while Owensboro will look to improve its winning streak to four games against Breckenridge County on the road.
