The first play on Lloyd Memorial’s brand new turf at Cecil Dees Field certainly won’t be one they’ll want to remember.
But the game is something they’ll have forever.
The Juggernauts kicked off the first game of the 2023 KHSAA football season in their new surroundings and sent Newport Central Catholic home to a 24-7 loss. It was just their second win in 35 years over the Thoroughbreds, the last one coming in 2017.
Lloyd’s front lines were too much for a Thoroughbreds team that graduated a lot in the trenches, the Juggernauts outgaining the Thoroughbreds 276-43 and forcing NewCath into 10 negative plays from scrimmage, the majority of those Lloyd’s defense bringing NewCath QB Kolton Smith to the ground.
“We call ourselves the ‘Darkside Pride’ for our defense,” Juggernauts defensive lineman Avander Abrams said. “We have a lot of pride in our run stopping. We have some pretty big guys up front, we practice hard, our game scripts are hard and we take a lot of pride in that. Our main goal on defense is hard-nosed football.”
What a way it was for NewCath to open the season, Demetrick Welch taking the opening kickoff off a bounce of the pristine turf, racing down the sideline and a cutback move that ended up with Welch in the end zone.
It was 7-0 Thoroughbreds just like that.
“The biggest thing with that was that yes we were pumped, but it also says that was too easy. We get the ball back and can’t go score. We had an opportunity there to go up 14, so it was kind of a double-edged sword that we scored on that and don’t want our guys to think it will be easy,” Thoroughbreds coach Stephen Lickert said. “They answered from there and we didn’t.”
Both teams were coming off state semifinal appearances in 2022, both losing to the eventual state champion in their respective class. NewCath to Pikeville in 1A, Lloyd to Beechwood in 2A.
What the Juggernauts had returning is what essentially created the mismatch in this one. They virtually returned all their defensive pieces from a 10-4 team a season ago. They also virtually pitched a shutout, the opening kickoff the lone score given up.
“We’ve got some depth. Return every starter from last year. We’ve got every tackle back, we’ve got every sack back, we’ve got every interception back and tonight kind of showed it,” Juggernauts coach Kyle Niederman said.
NewCath had their chances in the first half, either driving into Lloyd territory or starting on the positive side twice, but resulted in zero points.
The second half was a much different story. Lloyd’s defense was suffocating. NewCath went backwards more than they did forwards, finishing with negative seven yards from scrimmage in the game’s final 24 minutes.
Lloyd’s run game handled the rest from there.
Already with rushing scores from Avander Abrams to knot the game up at seven in the first and Yurii Collins-Comer from 27 yards out in the second, the duo of Collins-Comer and quarterback Isaiah Sebastian wore down a NewCath defense that spent a lot of time on the field in the second half.
“That’s what’s hard about small school football. It’s really hard to make in-game adjustments because your offense turns around and plays defense and then your defense turns around and plays offense,” Lickert said.
Collins-Comer added another score on the Juggernauts opening drive of the second half to make it 21-7 with 8:17 left in the third, Elijah Westwood’s 28-yard field goal the final scoring of the night with 34 seconds to play in the third quarter.
Sebastian enters the 2023 season in much similar territory as he did 2022, filling in for injured sophomore quarterback Kaleb Evans. Evans injured his collarbone in Week 1 of last season, re-injuring the collarbone in a scrimmage last week against Ludlow.
“It was great to have that experience last year just because I’m ready for it and sadly it happened again,” Sebastian said. “I just have to step up and do the same thing again.”
The junior all-around athlete finished with a game-high 134 rushing yards on 14 carries, his shiftiness on full display.
Collins-Comer added 110 yards on 17 carries which included a nasty stiff-arm at midfield on a fourth and two for a 25-yard gain.
“I learned that from (Kaiden) Zulager last year. That’s my big brother right there,” Collins-Comer said.
But what Niederman likes most about this team is that they all play for each other. Collins-Comer was named the MVP of the Skyline Chili Crosstown Showdown presented by Mercy Health Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine and Meijer. Collins-Comer ended with the two scores, but the dominating defensive effort was equally impressive.
“The thing I like about our defense is when Yuri gets the award, nobody cares, they don’t care. They don’t, they just they want to get a sack and if you don’t get it and another gets it, they celebrate the fact that you got it. They’re not selfish,” Niederman said. “They care about playing together, being coachable, being better people. They’re a great group of kids and everyday I walk out on this field it’s a pleasure to coach them.”
The Juggernauts return to action on Aug. 25 when they host Boone County. NewCath hosts Walton-Verona on the same day.
Lickert will get back to the drawing board right away, trying to shore up an inexperienced front line that graduated seven seniors last year and already lost a lineman for the year to injury before the season even began.
“We got a lot of guys that got a wake-up call tonight and we’re going to find the guys that are going to compete on Friday nights. If that’s a guy that’s in right now, great, if not, we’ll find somebody else,” Lickert said. “Our guys understand the goals and that this is Week 1 and our goal is to be really, really good come Week 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.”
JUGGERNAUTS 24, THOROUGHBREDS 7
NEWPORT CENTRAL CATHOLIC — 7-0-0-0 — 7
LLOYD MEMORIAL — 7-7-10-0 — 24
Scoring Plays
1st Quarter
(NCC) Welch 85-yard kickoff return (11:47) McCloskey kick
(LM) Abrams 2-yard run (3:09) Westwood kick
2nd Quarter
(LM) Collins-Comer 27-yard run (4:10) Westwood kick
3rd Quarter
(LM) Collins-Comer 1-yard run (8:17) Westwood kick
(LM) Westwood 28-yard FG
Game Stats
Passing Yards: NewCath 53 (Smith 8/17, INT), Lloyd 28 (Sebastian 2/3)
Rushing Yards: NewCath -10 (Welch 8-25, Cole 2-(minus) 5, Smith 13-(minus) 30), Lloyd 248 (Sebastian 14-134, Collins-Comer 17-110, Abrams 1-2, Moran 2-2, Bishop 3-0)
Receiving: NewCath (Cole 3-20, Welch 3-16, Bivens 1-12, Doeker 1-5), Lloyd (Copeland 2-28)
Turnovers: NewCath 1, Lloyd 0
Penalties: NewCath 4-20, Lloyd 4-25
Records: Newport Central Catholic 0-1, Lloyd Memorial 1-0
