Jim Mashek

BGHS WILL FACE FAMILIAR POSTSEASON RIVAL OWENSBORO NEXT WEEK AT RASH STADIUM; PURPLES’ NEWMAN, WARDER SHINE ON DEFENSE

Bowling Green High School’s football team is learning how to win games in different ways.

Senior BGHS quarterback Deuce Bailey has been the constant, in his final season of guiding the Purples’ offense, and the Bowling Green defense has thrived against better competition in the last three weeks of the season. But the KHSAA’s postseason tournament is here, and in Class 5A, everybody is gonna be gunnin’ for the Purples.

Last week, one day after Halloween, Bowling Green made the two-hour trip to Louisville to face perennial KHSAA Class 6A powerhouse St. Xavier, which is coached by former Purples coach Kevin Wallace.

Wallace, of course, is the architect of the team’s overall prowess for the last three decades on Rockingham Avenue.

Bowling Green’s defense turned in a magnificent effort in that game, limiting the talented Tigers to a scant 129 yards total offense, as the Purples rolled to an impressive 26-9 victory in the Derby City. That triumph capped an 8-2 finish in regular-season play, pitting Bowling Green in a first-round Class 5A playoff matchup against the undersized but tenacious Maroons of Madisonville-North Hopkins High School.

Madisonville-North Hopkins stayed within striking distance of the third-ranked Purples for nearly the entire first half, and Christopher Sweeney’s 56-yard reception on a beautifully thrown ball by Bailey helped Bowling Green build a 14-0 lead late in the first half.

But based on its own lofty standards, Bowling Green had labored through an uneven first half, but the Purples seemed intent on changing that after Nick Graham’s 1-yard touchdown run extended the BGHS lead to 14-0 with 2:29 left in the second quarter.

And change it, they did.

BGHS place-kicker Braden Widener, an all-state soccer player who has shined over the last two seasons on the football field, kick-started that process with a deep pooch kick to the left sideline, along the Purples’ bench.

It was an onside thing of beauty, the ball spinning in the open field before the Purples’ A.J. Woodard pounced on the ball at the M-NH 25-yard line. BGHS quarterback Deuce Bailey, who likes to go for broke in these situations, did just that by firing a 25-yard touchdown pass to reliable big-play receiver Trevy Barber, before Widener added the PAT to make it 21-0 with 2:15 showing on the scoreboard clock.

That’s right, the Purples scored 14 points in 14 seconds.

Say good night, Maroons. Bowling Green coasted to a 35-7 victory over Madisonville-North Hopkins, improving to 9-2 overall heading into second-round KHSAA Class 5A matchup against the Owensboro Red Devils.

In the bandbox known as Rash Stadium, in Owensboro.

That’s where a top-flight South Warren squad was eliminated last year in postseason play, falling to the Red Devils, 55-23. Owensboro (8-3) crushed Ohio County, 58-0, in first-round play on Friday night, and the Red Devils and Purples are more than a little familiar with one another.

So that’s where things stand as Bowling Green continues its defense of the KHSAA Class 5A state championship, the eighth in school history. The seventh one came at the expense of Owensboro in the COVID-interrupted 2020 season, when the Purples’ defense shackled the Red Devils, 17-7, on a cold afternoon at the University of Kentucky’s Kroger Field.

In other words, it’s fixin’ to get serious.

And special-teams brilliance is what jump started the Purples on this night. Veteran BGHS coach Mark Spader was quick to credit senior place-kicker Braden Widener for the chip shot that found the open space for A.J. Woodard to make a dramatic recovery.

Spader said Widener is “really good at placing the ball” on kickoffs, adding that BGHS special-teams coach Clay Stephens noticed the Maroons tended to stagger their return teams to their left side of the field. That gave Widener the chance to make it happen, and make it happen, he did.

“(Widener is) a soccer player, and he’s really good at placing the ball,” Spader said. “We’ve kind of practiced it, and our special-teams coach, Clay Stephens, made the call. He said, ‘Hey, we’ve got it here. I think we can get us one.’

“And that was big. Thank goodness, we did get that one.”

Widener, reached by text message on Saturday morning, said he tried a similar kickoff against Greenwood High School on October 25, and the Gators were able to adjust accordingly. But the seed had been planted.

“It didn’t work,” Widener said, “but I worked on it some more in practice, and we tried it again.”

So that’ll give Owensboro something else to think about, when the Red Devils resume their longtime postseason rival on the other side of the William H. Natcher Parkway.

(Now known as Interstate 165 …)

“Overall, we survive and advance,” BGHS coach Mark Spader said with a grin. “We didn’t have a great week of practice, like we did last week, and I hope we learn from that. And we’re polished up and ready to go, because we’re going on the road to face a much-improved Owensboro football team.”

BGHS senior defensive back Grayson Newman, one of the Purples’ permanent team captains along with senior QB Deuce Bailey, had a monster game against the ground-oriented Madisonville-North Hopkins offense. Newman plays strong safety in Bowling Green’s base defense, but you can also find him closer to the line of scrimmage in short-yardage and goal-line situations.

So you better account for him in pass protection, too, because Newman had a couple sacks to go with a solid all-around performance. Fellow BGHS defensive back Ethan Warder, a versatile senior, also turned in a strong game.

“I guess I realized I needed to step it up,” Newman said after the game. “It’s my senior year, every game isn’t promised. I think we’re starting to find ourselves, as a team, and as a defense.”

Bailey got the ball to junior BGHS running back Jaxen Smith on a swing pass that turned into a quick-strike, 37-yard touchdown pass in the opening moments of the third quarter, extending the Purples’ lead to 28-0.

Madisonville’s Kanyon Johnson, one of three Maroons quarterbacks to take snaps against the Purples, then took his team the length of the field, a methodical drive — “I think it was 19 plays,” BGHS coach Mark Spader said — capped by Markezz Hightower’s 3-yard touchdown run with 3:39 left in the third quarter.

A fake punt, on Johnson’s pass to M-NH teammate Ryan Sandidge for a 9-yard completion on a fourth-and-3 play at the Maroons’ end of the field kept the Madisonville scoring drive alive.

“They’re well coached, up front, and they’ve got an excellent running game,” Spader said. “I was disappointed with a couple defensive series there in the second half.”

BGHS quarterback Deuce Bailey added an exclamation point in the game’s final minutes, finding teammate Trevy Barber on a post pattern for a 25-yard touchdown pass with 1:39 left in the game.

Barber and BGHS defensive back Grayson Newman were introspective on the Purples’ performance, but Bailey may have been the harshest critic, keeping the big picture in mind.

Bowling Green wants to play for another KHSAA state championship.

“I think we have to play better as whole, offensively, if we want to get where we want to be,” Bailey said. “We’re going to enjoy the win, over the weekend, and then get ready for a good Owensboro team.”