The clock was running. And so was Beechwood sophomore Chase Flaherty.
Through, around, and over people. Out of the arms of people who thought they’d already tackled him.
But wait a minute, didn’t those guys lose top running back Mitchell Berger, the leading candidate for Mr. Football, just a little over a month ago?
How the heck are they doing that?
Just the way the two-time defending state champs out Fort Mitchell way always seem to do it: Somebody else steps up. This time it was the 5-foot-9, 170-pound football-baseball guy getting a chance to show what he could do.
Show it he did, running the ball 11 times the first half for 134 yards and, oh yeah, three touchdowns behind an offensive line that, with the return of Austin Waddell, is performing to near perfection.
“With all the things Mitchell did, you’re going to have to replace him with several people,” said Beechwood coach Noel Rash, of his out-for-the-season star runner, receiver, linebacker, place-kicker, and punter.
Unlike most high school teams, Beechwood has people. Landon Aylor was first up but he hurt his foot and that opened it up for Flaherty. And now Aylor is coming back as a valuable defender. So it was a two-for-one deal.
Flaherty, also a terrific baseball prospect as a pitcher, was taking the load on offense.
How much did Beechwood’s Tigers, now 12-1 and No. 1 in Class 2A RPI rankings, know they could call on Flaherty as they prepare to host a return match next Friday against Lloyd Memorial after the Juggernauts’ 41-32 win over Breathitt County?
This much. The first time they got the ball, thanks to Carson Craycraft’s first interception, they gave it to Flaherty — for 37 yards. Then they gave it to him again — for 10 more. And again, for 25 yards on a nifty counter trap for the game’s first score.
That’s 72 yards on three carries. The next time they got it, they gave it to him all five times for 51 yards and another TD.
The third time, with Beechwood quarterback Clay Hayden working on his passing, they gave it to Flaherty just twice — for six yards — and his third TD. He was now in Mitchell Berger territory replacing the man who was the state’s leading scorer.
“He’s always been a really good player, extremely talented,” Rash said, “extremely humble, with really good vision, and very coachable.”
He runs with the kind of mature patience you seldom see in a player so young. He let’s plays happen, let’s his blockers do their work, doesn’t force things, until he’s in the grasp of a tackler or two, and then he just keeps on moving his feet while finding a way through contact.
“He’s played that well since Mitchell got hurt,” Rash said. “It was all hands on deck . . . everybody had to assume a bigger role.”
The way Craycraft has, with a second interception from 33 yards out that he returned for a TD to make it 42-0 as he turned the defense into offense and gave this game a running clock in the first half.
That was Craycraft’s seventh interception of the season producing two TD and more than 120 return yards.
The secret, said Xavier Campbell, the 6-1, 230-pound edge rusher who bedeviled Shelby Valley all night, is this: “We’re playing together, we have nine seniors on defense” and they know what every one of them is doing.
Rash has another nominee. “Our O-line has been the unsung hero,” he said. “I’m so proud of them.”
Just the way you had to be proud of Antonio Robinson, the transfer ranked as Kentucky’s No. 2 college prospect, who has played his whole life in Florida and was experiencing his first-ever sub-freezing football on this 25-degree night.
He scored easily on a 28-yard TD pass from Hayden, who also hit another from five yards out to Landon Johnson. “I was naked open,” Robinson said of the inability of Shelby Valley’s secondary to stay with him, an interesting choice of words for this frigid football game.
“It’s terrible,” Antonio said of the cold, “I’ve lived in Florida my whole life.” He was happy to hear the weather should warm up considerably net Friday.
“But it was good experience,” he said even if he never wants to have to do it again as he heads to Wake Forest for the spring semester.
As for what comes next, “I’m happy for Lloyd,” said Juggernaut football alum Rash. “I root for all the Northern Kentucky schools.”
But how much harder will it be to beat the Juggs twice this season? Rash didn’t say but he did talk about what he took away from that 34-7 win five weeks ago.
“We were leading 14-7 when Mitch got hurt and we went on to score 20 more points,” Rash said . . . because other guys stepped up.
It’s the theme for this team.
Box Score
Shelby Valley 0 0 6 6 — 12
Beechwood 21 21 0 7 — 49
Bee: Flaherty 25 run (Kappes PAT)
Bee: Flaherty 4 run (Kappes PAT)
Bee: Johnson 5 pass from Hayyden (Kappes PAT)
Bee: Flaherty 2 run (Kappes PAT)
Bee: Robinson 28 pass from Hayden
Bee: Craycraft 33 INT return (Kappes PAT)
SV: Newsome 5 run (PAT fails)
Bee: Harney 1 run (Kappes PAT)
SV: Bentley 56 pass from Johnson (PAT fails)