It’s never easy playing Beechwood . . . especially in Ft. Mitchell.
But try it without your best player, a four-year starting quarterback leader replaced by a freshman, and your best running back, the way Simon Kenton did Friday night.
And then your cheerleaders have you running through a giant banner headlined “HERE KITTY, KITTY” as Beechwood’s Tigers just watched. But didn’t wait.
By halftime, it was 23-0 in favor of the small school “kitties” with the state’s longest win streak on their way to a 30-7 win. And yet, Class 6A Simon Kenton played to the end despite the fact that the injured duo of QB Chase Crone and TB Jaden Lawson were available only for the coin toss.
Against Beechwood. On the road. Where the program is so solid right now the water boys have water boys. And the chain crew has their own unis – and maybe even a B-team, who knows.
Where they can start a freshman quarterback, Cash Harney, and keep the win streak unchallenged at 27 now. Or where they can announce that the Player of the Game is Mitch Berger while the team chants “Aylor, Aylor,” only to have the announcer immediately say they were right. It is Aylor, Landon Aylor, that is.
Although the multi-sport, multi-position Berger would not have been a bad choice. The senior gains the tough yards, makes the tough tackles, hits rugby style punts for 64 yards down to the one and his perfect PATs end up over the fence somewhere.
And his powerful TD romps, from 22 yards out in the first quarter when he just refused to stop running no matter how many tacklers grabbed on to him, and from 35 yards out in the third on a dive that saw him not stop accelerating until he hit the end zone.
But Landon Aylor, who takes over when Mitch gets gassed from doing everything on both sides of the ball or maybe when his rib injuries start to bother him some, will see those TDs and raise them with a pair of his own. One came from 19 yards as he tiptoed niftily through and over tacklers. The other from 52 yards away surprised even Aylor.
“It was surreal,” Aylor said before posing with as many as 11 of his closest friends and family for postgame photos, “they weren’t catching up to me,” of the burst right up the gut.
“The toolbox is all there for him,” Beechwood coach Noel Rash said of the 5-foot-10, 185-pound Aylor, who is listed as a DB/WR on the official KHSAA roster. Aylor amended that with his play Friday.
But he deflected the praise. “Give all the glory to the guys up front,” he said. And to Berger. “Mitchell is always doing it all the time.” But this was no surprise. “I kinda’ figured it in practice all week,” Aylor said.
Against the huge Simon Kenton lines, this was going to be a rock’em, sock’em game. And Mitch was going to need some down time. But no down time for the Tigers when they handed Aylor the ball.
“We see him every day so it’s no surprise to us,” Rash said of Aylor stepping up when he got the chance.
Nor are the occasional mistakes. “We’re playing fast and physical, now we gotta’ play smart,” Rash said. Although there is one explanation. “We’re just four weeks into this thing.”
But waiting for the 4-0 Tigers in Week 5 is a much-improved 3-1 Covington Catholic team coming off a 42-14 romp over Dixie Heights Friday.
As for Simon Kenton’s now 2-2 Pioneers, coach Roy Lucas Jr. told his team “I’m proud of you, I love you” after they came back to score in the final seconds and avoid a shutout.
Freshman quarterback Tucker Ober, who has taken over amazingly well for a lanky 165-pounder not at all hesitant to throw his body into the teeth of the defense, hit Chase Williams right inside the flag from nine yards out for the TD.
But mostly Ober just busted it up in there, running it an unofficial 23 times for 77 yards. Not only had Simon Kenton put him in there in place of Crone, they put the game in his hands.
“It would have been better if it was Chase,” said Beechwood defensive end Xavier Campbell, “but we prepared for both of them. Our gameplan was basically to stop the run.”
And that meant this game was going to be tough man-on-man football.” And the element of the game Rash liked most? “Our tackling,” he said.
“That was the most physical game we’ve played,” said Campbell, a 6-foot, 230-pound thumper.
It certainly was when Beechwood’s speedy Antonio Robinson Jr. got the ball. Lining up at wide receiver, Wildcat QB and tailback, ARJ had no room to run. Every time he touched the ball, it looked like two or sometimes three Pioneers were playing him man to man. They were not going to let the Florida transfer, Wake Forest commit, and No. 2 prospect in Kentucky beat them.
But Aylor? “He was always the MVP,” Rash said.
Game photos by Joe Simon/LINK nky
