Jim Mashek

LOGAN COUNTY TRAVELS TO ELIZABETHTOWN FOR CLASS 4A SHOWDOWN; SOUTH WARREN, GLASGOW TRY TO STAY UNBEATEN WITH HOME GAMES

The KHSAA football tournament field has been cut precisely in half.

One week into the KHSAA postseason, the favorites seem to be holding serve while the underdogs look for a big breakthrough.

Like, Greenwood High School’s football team, which takes the 70-mile journey to Owensboro. The Gators (7-4 overall) will take on an immensely talented Owensboro High School squad (9-2), with the winner advancing to the KHSAA Class 5A regional championship round.

Or, in Franklin-Simpson’s case, the three-hour road trip to tangle with mighty Paducah Tilghman, the defending KHSAA Class 4A state champion. The Wildcats (7-4 overall) have already made the roadie, to Paducah’s McRight Stadium, and the Blue Tornado has stubbed its toe once this season, falling to Madisonville-North Hopkins, 25-22, in mid-September in Madisonville.

Paducah Tilghman coach Sean Thompson has guided his team to seven consecutive victories since then, and the Blue Tornado (11-1) have posted all but one of those triumphs by 20 points or more.

In other words, they’re rolling.

Meanwhile, at tradition-rich Bowling Green High School, ninth-year BGHS coach Mark Spader will try to turn his team’s late-season surge into a berth in the KHSAA Class 5A quarterfinals. The Purples (5-6 overall) will scrap with Owensboro’s Apollo High School, which figures to be the final home game for the BGHS senior class, regardless of the outcome.

“After the season we’ve gone through, I like where we are, right now,” Spader said. “Apollo poses a strong opponent, and they’re playing really good football. Lots of seniors, and multiple playmakers …

“We’ll have our hands full, with Coach (John) Edge’s Eagles.”

Apollo (6-5 overall) has won four of its last five games, including last week’s 19-7 victory over Barren County High School in Glasgow. Apollo has recovered from a rough 2-4 start and uses two quarterbacks — junior Maxwell Johnson and senior John Edge, the son of the Eagles’ head coach — to put points on the board.

Apollo has scored 30 or more points in nearly half of its games to date.

Meanwhile, at South Warren High School, the unbeaten Spartans (11-0 overall) will tangle with an upset-minded Hopkinsville squad, in a rematch from a mid-September game in Hoptown. The Spartans had a bye in the opening week of the playoffs, when Christian County, which finished 1-9, chose not to compete in postseason play, before making the trip to Paducah Tilghman, where the Colonels fell to Tilghman, 54-7.

(That was the final game in school history, as Christian County and Hopkinsville will merge into one HUGE school, whose athletics teams will be known as the Christian County Tigers, borrowing from both school’s legacies over the years.)

The Glasgow Scotties, having a banner season under first-year coach Jackson Arnett, will play host to Union County, a run-oriented squad that was the KHSAA Class 3A state runner-up last season. Glasgow (11-0 overall) has outscored its opponents by a staggering 456-65 margin, while Union County (6-5) will try to build on last week’s 42-0 rout of visiting LaRue County in Morganfield.

And in Murray, Kentucky, the home of the Murray State University Racers, unbeaten Murray High School (11-0 overall) will square off with Glasgow’s district rival, the Hart County Raiders (9-2). Hart County has been a consistent winner under coach Chad Griffin over the last three seasons.

At Bowling Green, the Purples will rely on a stout defense, the left arm of freshman QB Anthony Davis and a bevy of capable wideouts and running backs — led by All-State receiver Trevy Barber — as veteran coach Mark Spader’s squad looks to make another run at the KHSAA Class 5A state championship.

Bowling Green always plays an ambitious schedule, but Barber’s arm injury, early in the season, and some other misfortune contributed to a rough 1-5 start. Since then, Bowling Green has relied on its defense to win four of its last five games, including last week’s 42-0 rout of Graves County at the BGHS stadium.

One of Bowling Green’s district rivals, Greenwood High School, will try to build on last week’s tense 21-18 victory over Madisonville-North Hopkins at The Swamp. Greenwood tailback Davis Chaney rushed for 163 yards as the Gators (7-4 overall) earned their first postseason victory since the 2022 season.

Friday night’s second-round matchup features a contrast in styles, as Owensboro relies on the big-play offense provided by dual-threat QB DaMarcus Ganaway, a 5-foot-11, 160-pound junior. Ganaway has passed for 1,853 yards and 26 touchdowns, while only throwing three interceptions. On the ground, the Red Devils count on multi-sport star Evan Hampton, a 6-foot, 210-pound senior who has rushed for a team-high 1,259 yards and 19 touchdowns.

Ganaway and Owensboro teammate Omarion Tee Green are also effective runners, with 12 rushing touchdowns between them.

“I think we’ve got to limit their big plays,” eighth-year Greenwood coach William Howard said. “They’re going to get their yards, but they’re kind of a big-play offense. We’ve got to take control, offensively, by staying on the field, playing at our pace.

“Our defense has done a great job this year. This is a great group of kids, kids who work hard, and bring their lunch pails to work every day. That’s been our edge this year.”

Howard said the Gators like the idea of being the underdog.

“We’re used to that, we embrace that,” Howard said. “At Greenwood, we kind of get what we work for …”

Max Chaney, the sixth-year head coach at Franklin-Simpson, grew up in a home just across the street from the Wildcats’ home turf, James Mathews Stadium. Franklin-Simpson, however, has played four of its last five games on the road, so the Wildcats should be able to handle the logistics of a three-hour road trip to Paducah’s McRight Stadium.

Once they get there, the tough part begins.

“We’re not going to shy away from them,” Chaney said. “We know they’re a physical team. We played them in September, and it was a 7-0 game in the third quarter. They won the game (35-14), and we had one of our scores on a pick-six, but I think we’ve become much better since then, particularly defensively.”

Senior QB Brady Delk, the Wildcats’ three-year starter at quarterback, calls the shots in Franklin-Simpson’s Wing-T attack, passing sparingly but rushing for 421 yards and five touchdowns.

Franklin-Simpson senior Blake McPherson, who has been sidelined for the season with a broken collarbone, finished his final season with the Wildcats with 709 yards rushing and 10 touchdowns. Chaney has a top-flight running back, however, in junior Evan Hampton (1,116 yards rushing, a team-high 11 touchdowns).

Logan County improved to 9-2 overall in last week’s 35-12 victory over Marion County last week at Cougar Field. Now veteran LCHS coach Todd Adler’s team makes the 2.5-hour journey to Elizabethown, to tangle with the E-Town Panthers (8-3 overall).

Logan County gave mighty Paducah Tilghman a run for the money in the first week of October, dropping a 35-27 decision to the Blue Tornado in Paducah. Since then, the Cougars have won three of four games, the lone loss coming at the hands of unbeaten South Warren, 49-14.

“They’re super talented,” Adler said. “E-Town, they’re well coached, they get after you, offensively and defensively. It’s going to be a tall task, but we’re looking forward to the challenge.

“Hopefully, we can grown from it, and continue on this journey.”

Glasgow, under first-year head coach Jackson Arnett, needed two overtimes to slip past Franklin-Simpson, 27-24, on October 30 at Mathews Stadium in Franklin. The Scotties (11-0) then manhandled Webster County, 56-0, to move into Friday night’s matchup against Union County (6-5). In another KHSAA Class 3A showdown, Hart County (8-3 overall) is on the road to square off against unbeaten Murray High School (11-0).