Games are fast approaching as Thursday kickoffs become more prevalent. Newport stuns with a quick start. Hartness gets to QBs in a hurry and so does Hurry. Conner’s TD maker is zooming. It’s all here in the fastest 1,000 words in sports.
Opportunistic Wildcats Getting It Done
Newport High School football coach Paul Wiggins says his players have rallied around themselves this season while playing solid, opportunistic defense and capitalizing on other team’s mistakes. The numbers support his assertions as the Wildcats seek to extend their unbeaten start to the 2024 season. The visiting 4-0 Wildcats take on 4-1 Lloyd Memorial Thursday beginning at 7 p.m. in Erlanger. Lloyd has also won four straight games after dropping its opener.
“The team’s energized,” Wiggins said. “Winning our first game at home against Boone County after not being able to play there for a couple years because of the reconstruction was electric. The players are buying in. Rod Thompson kept coming up to me in the Ludlow game saying, ‘We got your back, we got your back.’ Right now, it’s the defensive side making it possible and giving the offense a chance. We’re still waiting on the offense.”
The Newport defense is creating massive pressure at the point of contact with more down linemen in its base following a switch to a four-man front. Bringing the heat are senior Jaylan Hartness and appropriately named sophomore Sean Hurry, both of whom put quarterbacks on the run with deep penetration in the opposing backfield.
Totals for Hartness, Hurry, team defense and team sacks all rank among statewide leaders. Hartness ranks third in Kentucky with 8.5 sacks. Hurry is tied for 28th with four sacks. Newport ranks tied for fourth in average sacks per game with 3.4 and tied for 41st in scoring defense with an average yield of 16 points. The Wildcats look even better among Class A statewide leaders where Hartness leads in sacks, Hurry ranks fourth, the team ranks first and scoring defense ranks fourth.
Upfront pressure is going hand in hand with generally tight coverage. Hurry leads the team with 33 tackles and is second with 12 tackles for loss behind Hartness’s 17. The Wildcats have come up with four interceptions ranking fifth in Class A. Kendall Buck-Barber leads the way with two picks, one returned for a touchdown. Kyle Lee returned an interception 70 yards for a score. Newport has seven takeaways for an average of nearly two per game.
The Wildcats have also demonstrated big-play capability in a variety of forms. They have scored five ways in four games: via rushing TD, passing TD, punt return TD, fumble recovery return for a score and the two interception returns for scores. Newport has two dozen individual and team entries among KHSAA Class A statewide leaders, demonstrating a team-wide effort.
One of those Class A leaders is the efficient Lee at quarterback where he ranks tied for eighth with eight passing TDs and 11th with 135 yards passing per game. He’s sixth with a 61.4% completion percentage among passers with at least 50 attempts. He’s thrown just two interceptions in the spread offense. Three receivers have at least 100 yards: Buck-Barber with 161 on a team-best 11 catches, Keegan Farrell with 130 and Kayveion Sharp with 113. Newport receivers are averaging 15 yards per catch.
Keeping Up With The Lowes
Coach Wiggins is looking forward to greater production from cousins AJ Lowe and Amontae Lowe, two talented Newport players who have yet to hit their stride. Amontae Lowe is a key part of the Wildcats’ passing game after ranking second on the team in catches, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns as a freshman. The 6-foot-1 multi-sport star also ranked third in interceptions and seventh in tackles. He had one catch and three tackles entering the week after missing three games with an infection. He’s also a basketball standout at Newport.
AJ Lowe, a 6-5 senior, has yet to register any statistics after coming back to Newport. He played last season at Scott where he led the team with 20 yards per catch and ranked third in receiving yards and 12th in tackles. As a freshman receiver at Newport, he led the team with 15 yards per catch, ranked third in scoring and fourth in receiving yards. He has played for a different head coach in a different system every year of his varsity career.
Newport Quick Snaps
A cursory look at the Wildcats’ rushing numbers doesn’t reveal much that’s eye-popping. They are averaging a pedestrian 3.98 yards per carry on 87 attempts for 347 yards. A deeper dive reveals some hidden truths. Newport’s top three rushers, running backs Rod Thompson, Ayden Stachel and Carvonta Roper, have combined for 324 yards on 42 attempts for a brilliant 7.7 yards per carry.
Thompson, last season’s team leader with 643 rushing yards, has 171 so far this season. They have come on just 11 carries in limited duty because of injury, making Thompson a virtual first down waiting to happen. He’s averaging a whopping 15.5 yards per carry. Stachel and Roper are averaging around 5.0 yards per carry.
“They are our unsung heroes,” Wiggins said of Stachel and Roper. “They’ve really helped us out.”
Coach Wiggins’ record over his last 40 games is 30-10 for a sterling .750 winning percentage. In addition to his 4-0 ledger this year, he went 26-10 over his last three seasons at Bishop Brossart.
Hatfield The Real McCoy
Conner quarterback Wyatt Hatfield already has an area-leading 14 rushing touchdowns on the season, ranking fourth in Kentucky regardless of class. Hatfield’s 88 points are tied for fifth statewide. Hatfield scored 13 touchdowns and totaled 80 points all of last season in 11 games, so his production there is way up. The senior scored four rushing touchdowns while piling up 238 yards on the ground last week in a win over Simon Kenton. He scored four TDs and rambled for 168 yards in a victory over Newport Central Catholic the week prior and surpassed 1,000 career rushing yards.
Hatfield had three rushing TDs and 56 yards rushing the week before that in a win vs. Lafayette. He has 11 rushing TDs in his last three games, moving him up the state leaderboard. Hatfield scored Conner’s lone TD while being held to 24 yards rushing in a loss to Ryle. He had two rushing TDs and 90 yards rushing in the season-opening win over Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Through the first five games, Hatfield has accounted for 53% of Conner’s scoring (165 points). The 4-1 Cougars rank among state leaders in scoring margin, outpointing the opposition by 14.2 points per game. Hatfield averages 17.6 points. Hatfield ranks fifth in Class 5A and third locally with 575 rushing yards. He’s averaging 115 yards per game and needs 687 yards to reach 2,000 in his career. He has passed for a career total of 1,035 yards.
CovCath Rushing Record Holds
Numbers churned out by the suddenly prolific Covington Catholic Colonels got so crazy last Friday against Beechwood that their software apparently couldn’t handle the surge. In fact, a rare glitch in the otherwise stellar statistical updates provided by CovCath had some folks looking for the record books. The first CovCath-generated game summary on Friday listed a rushing total of 561 yards in the 49-28 win over Beechwood. The rushing total was subsequently revised to 462 in a second update provided Saturday. CovCath’s rushing total changed again to 490 when the KHSAA updates rolled around.
According to CovCath record-keeping, the single-game rushing record is 514 yards against Highlands in 2016. It’s safe for now, but CovCath is averaging 309 rushing yards per game, ranking ninth statewide and fifth in Class 4A. CovCath is one of the few teams that releases statistical summaries immediately after a football game, and the school has been doing it for years, gaining a well-earned reputation for accuracy. CovCath said Saturday it’s still trying to solve bugs in its software. The stat crew reviewed the Beechwood game by hand, play-by play, to verify Friday’s data.
Football Games Move To Thursday
Add the Holmes-Covington Catholic tilt to the list of high school football games now being held Thursday night instead of Friday due to a shortage of available officials. Holmes hosts CovCath with a 7 p.m. kickoff. Thursday’s KHSAA slate has swelled to more than 30 games including Lloyd vs. Newport at 7 p.m., a game originally slated for Oct. 4.
The Northern Kentucky Officials Association has fewer officials than total number of weekly games scheduled at all playing levels. While the NKOA addresses the shortage, schools have been asked to play more football games on Thursday as an alternative to a reduction in gameday crew sizes. The situation is not unique to Kentucky. The Ohio High School Athletic Association reports a 20% decrease in the number of available officials.
Bellevue Change Vs. Former Coach
Kickoff for Friday’s Bellevue-Gamble Montessori contest at Western Hills High School in Cincinnati has been moved up two hours. Game time is now 5 p.m. It’s Bellevue’s first game in three weeks. The Tigers (2-1) were last in action Sept. 6 at home with a 36-6 victory against Pendleton County.
Gamble Montessori competes in Ohio Division 5. It’s the second game in the series. Gamble Montessori won last year, 57-8, at Bellevue. The 0-5 Gators are led by former Bellevue head coach Dave Brausch, in his first season at Gamble. Brausch coached Bellevue one season in 2022 and finished 0-9. A coaching veteran of more than 40 years, he enjoyed previous success at Lebanon in Ohio where he led the football team to a 1998 Division II state championship.