KICKING GAME MISTAKES DOOM BGHS; GREENWOOD REMATCH IS NEXT
They battled for field position in the early going. Bowling Green High School’s defense seemed equal to the task, at least for a while. In time, though, second-ranked St. Xavier needed a lift. And the Tigers found it in their special-teams play.
St. Xavier opened the scoring on Mekhi Smith’s 53-yard punt return for a touchdown with 3:05 left in the first half.
Bowling Green stayed within striking distance in the third quarter, but the Purples failed to capitalize on their opportunities. St. Xavier pulled away with 20 points in the fourth quarter, outdistancing the homestanding Purples 27-0 on Friday night at the BGHS football stadium.
Bowling Green’s defense, anchored by senior nose tackle Jeremiah Lightfoot and senior linebacker Tyler Moore, held its own against senior quarterback Jack Sivori and the Tigers’ talented offense. But St. X’s defense was even better, and the Tigers improved to 9-1 heading into the KHSAA Class 6A playoffs.
BGHS dropped to 5-5 overall, heading into its KHSAA first-round Class 5A playoff game against Greenwood (7-3). The Purples crushed Greenwood 38-8, just two weeks ago, and the Gators are 0-32 lifetime against the Purples on the football field.
“They’ve done a great job with a very young football team,” St. X coach Kevin Wallace said afterward, meeting with a handful of his former players during the handshake line. “They’ve played a difficult schedule. With us, I’m disappointed in the turnovers. We hadn’t had a single turnover in the last five weeks, and we had three or four tonight.”
Third-year BGHS coach Mark Spader, Wallace’s successor, tried to throw the ball to get back in the game in the second half. Freshman quarterback Deuce Bailey struggled with the Tigers’ pass rush and St. X could always recover when the Purples managed to move the ball on the ground.
Senior tailback Matrix Halcomb was particularly effective running the football, but the Purples couldn’t sustain those drives in the red zone. They also had a field-goal attempt blocked, when the game was still scoreless in the first quarter. Problems with the kicking game, in fact, seemed the swing the pendelum away from the Purples, and into the hands of their capable opponent.
“It all comes down to special teams,” Spader said. “A good team like that will continue to flip the field with their defense, and their kicking game was very solid. We have to put our offense in a position to move the ball and score … Now, we get started on the (5A) playoffs.”
St. Xavier maintained a steady pass on Bailey, the Purples’ talented freshman quarterback. But penalties and a dropped pass in the Tigers’ end zone certainly hurt Bowling Green’s chances over the long run.
“We both have a lot of pride in our football programs,” Spader said. “We respect each other’s football teams. We’ll probably keep scheduling each other. Their quarterback, Sivori, is hard to handle, and I thought our defense really did a good job against him.”
On the first play of the fourth quarter, Sivori lofted a 17-yard touchdown pass to senior St. X receiver Michael Duddy, putting the Tigers in front 14-0. The Tigers’ Justin Walsh scored on a 3-yard touchdown run with 3:51 left in the game, and senior cornerback Jackson Poma intercepted a Bailey pass and returned it 32 yards for the game’s final score.
Junior linebacker Devin Geer had two interceptions for the Purples.
