Jim Mashek

DRAGONS SURVIVE IN JEREMY HARNESS’ DEBUT AS WCHS COACH

RUSSELLVILLE — Logan County’s Lewisburg Bank Bowl had some anxious moments, particularly for first-year coach Jeremy Harness and his staff at Warren Central High School.

While the homestanding Cougars and Butler County waited to take the field, after dusk, Warren Central and Russellville slugged it out for three hours or so, in an uneven game with plenty of penalties and other cumbersome procedures.

Ultimately, though, the game came down to a pair of two-point conversion attempts, which made sense because offense was at a premium in this opening game at Logan County High School.on Friday evening.

Warren Central 8, Russellville 6.

And nobody hit a three-run homer …

The Dragons’ defense stopped Russellville inside their 5-yard line as the first half came to a close, and they stopped the two-point conversion that could have tied the game in the early moments of the fourth quarter. Then, Warren Central needed one last stop, in the final minute, after the Panthers were on the cusp of the red zone.

“That’s what we’ve got to do,” Harness said when it was over. “Every play, play hard. Winning is hard … we’ve been preppin’ for this, since I got here … Our defensive coaches, they did a great job.”

Russellville collected 190 yards total offense, considerably more than the Dragons’ total of 112 yards, but Warren Central’s defense seemed better equipped in short-yardage and goal-line situations.

In fact, after Russellville scored its only points, on senior running back Octavious McKeage’s 1-yard TD run, the Panthers were poised to tie the game on McKeage’s keeper for the two-point conversion. Russellville was called for a holding penalty, however, and McKeage’s subsequent pass was intercepted in the end zone by Warren Central’s Walter Moore.

Ramaun North had an interception for Warren Central in the opening moments of the second half, but the Dragons had trouble capitalizing on the Russellville miscues. Likewise, the Panthers’ Jacoveon Temple-Dickerson executed a straight-ahead onside kick after McKeage’s touchdown, but Russellville had back-to-back fumbled snaps, out of the pistol formation, and Warren Central quickly gained possession.

Harness said his defensive coordinator, Jamarvin Durham, deserves a lot of credit. It’s been tough sledding at Warren Central for awhile. The Dragons snapped a miserable 61-game losing streak on Opening Night in 2022, when former coach Mark Nelson’s team mauled Bullitt Central, 13-0, in Shepherdsville.

Warren Central would finish at .500 in regular-season play that year, but since then, the Dragons had lost 11 of their 12 games. They’ve got a tough task ahead, with a home game on Friday night against nearby Franklin-Simpson High School (1-0).

The WIldcats drubbed Daviess County, 31-13, in the nightcap of the J Allen Builders Bowl at Warren East High School on Friday.

“(Durham) is a beast, and he’s the most amazing person, when it comes to being around these kids,” Harness said.

Warren Central’s senior quarterback, Zarionte Howard, scored all of his team’s points in the early moments of the second quarter.

Howard directed a 14-play, 77-yard touchdown drive to get the Dragons on the board, converting three third downs and two fourth-down plays along the way. Howard got good protection and found sophomore WCHS wideout Juelz Hyde on a sideline pass for a 19-yard gain, and later converted a fourth-down play with an 8-yard pass to Hyde on the opposite sideline.

On fourth-and-goal from the Russellville 5-yard line, Howard burned the Panthers’ defense on a quarterback draw for the touchdown. The Dragons used a similar play to add the two-point conversion, with Howard again squeezing through a couple Russellville defenders at the goal line.

“I found the gap, and I got down,” Howard said. “Our defense really played well tonight.”

Penalties plagued both squads, along with missed assignments and the like, but it was Opening Night, and the evening heat resulted in both teams dealing with cramps. Russellville’s Jerious Coleman and Hunter Hallman took the bulk of the snaps at quarterback, but the Panthers were without their starting center, Alex Holdren, which no doubt contributed to their problems with snapping the ball.

Russellville coach Mikie Benton said Holdren has been dealing with a lingering injury, but he hopes he will be back for next Friday’s road game against the Glasgow Scotties (1-0). Glasgow whipped LaRue County, 40-7, in its opening game.

“We had six to eight bad snaps, and that hurt us,” Benton said in a telephone interview on Saturday morning. “We shot ourselves in the foot a lot, but Warren Central made a couple key plays. Our defensive back (McKeage) said he lost the ball in the sun on that one completion (to Hyde for 19 yards). The penalties hurt — holding, blocks in the back — but those are things you should be able to overcome.

“We’ll look at things and get ready for Glasgow.”

LOGAN COUNTY 44, BUTLER COUNTY 13

Senior quarterback Garrett Phelps and the Butler County offense had the upper hand for most of the first half, but the Cougars came back strong in the third quarter, and they coasted to victory in the nightcap.

Junior quarterback Ridge Holman hit teammate TySean Thomaczek for a touchdown pass early in the third quarter, breaking a 13-13 tie, and the Cougars’ Elijah Sells added a scoring run on an inside reverse, pushing the Logan County lead to two touchdowns.

The Cougars won 19 games over the last two seasons, but they’ve had to make some wholesale changes, LC coach Todd Adler said.

“We’re only returning three starters on offense, and two on defense, so it was about what I expected,” Adler said via text message on Saturday morning. “It will take us some time to gain experience and learn to mesh together. We saw some of that in the second half.

“The more these guys play together, the better they will be.”

The Cougars venture south to nearby Clarksville, Tennessee, to face Rossview High School next week, while Butler County is on the road to play Webster County.