PRE-GAME HUDDLE

 The road to Bowling Green and the 2010 Kentucky High School Football Championship starts Friday.  Around the state 32 teams in each of the six classes begin post-season play.

Locally, all four teams will be in action with Nicholas County going to Findlay Legion Field to play the Williamsburg Yellow Jackets in Class A. Coach David Mitchell’s Lynn Camp Wildcats are headed to northeastern Kentucky to play the Fairview Eagles.

In Class 2A, third-ranked Corbin will host the Bath County Wildcats while the Whitley County Colonels will travel to Southwestern Pulaski to take on the Warriors.

Here’s a look at the four-playoff games.

Williamsburg must be ready

Nicholas County at Williamsburg: This will be a much tougher game for the Yellow Jackets than anyone first thought. The Blue Jackets have made steady progress this season for coach Robert Hopkins.

Nicholas County will bring in a 6-4 record with wins over Bath County (48-20), Fleming County (28-20), Berea (55-12), Lewis County (23-6), Paris (61-28) and Bracken County (48-22). The Blue Jackets have suffered losses to West Carter (28-8), Raceland (28-12), Lexington Christian (34-13) and Fairview (26-18).

The fact that the Blue Jackets played close to Lexington Christian and Fairview make you look at them a lot closer. Nicholas County is a rather young team with quarterback Dalton Pope just a freshman. Running back Caleb Pope is a junior. The two are the Blue Jackets go-to players. In the last two weeks, Caleb Pope has run for 252 yards and four touchdowns and he has caught four passes for 200 yards and two touchdowns.

The Jackets are not a one-dimensional team, junior running back Jessie Smith, senior running back Wes Hopkins and sophomore running back Austin Allison are threats to score.

The Blue Jackets are averaging 31.4 points per game with a high of 61 points against Paris. Defensively, they have given up 22.4 points per game with a high of 28 points in the losses to West Carter and Raceland.

What has happened to the Yellow Jackets? Williamsburg suffered a disappointing loss to Pineville at home Friday night, 26-22. The Jackets jumped out to a 16-0 lead, but struggled the rest of the way.

After starting the season with a 2-3 record against some tough competition, the Yellow Jackets went through a stretch of four district games that saw Williamsburg outscore their opponents 156-32. Williamsburg had a bye week after its shutout of Lynn Camp, but came back sluggish against the Lions.

If a rejuvenated Yellow Jackets’ team comes to play, Williamsburg should beat Nicholas County, but if the one that showed up to play Pineville returns to Findlay-Legion Field, it will be the end of the season.

Look for the Yellow Jackets to fight back with a 36-22 win.

Uphill battle for the ‘Cats

Lynn Camp at Fairview: It will be a long bus ride to Ashland Fairview. The Eagles are 9-1 with their lone loss coming against the Lexington Christian Eagles. Lexington Christian rolled past the Eagles, 41-21.

Fairview has wins over West Carter (16-13), Bracken County (49-12), East Carter (42-2), Boyd County (48-6), Lewis County (51-0), Paris (49-0), Raceland (49-22), Nicholas County (26-18) and Paintsville (56-0).

Led by Chris Brewer, Jared Hutchinson, Chris Littlejohn, Devon Turner and Gary Feider, the Eagles are averaging 40.7 points per game.

Quarterback Ty Lowe has been an instrumental part of the offense throwing the ball for seven touchdowns. However, it’s Brewer leading the Eagles with 11 touchdowns on 124 carries and 935 yards.

Hutchinson leads the team in scoring with nine rushing touchdowns, two from passing, two on interception returns and one via the kickoff return.

Fairview is second in team defense behind Mayfield with an average of 11.7. They are third best in Class A against the run and second against the pass.

A young Lynn Camp team led by sophomore Clint Jackson will have a tough battle at Fairview. Give this win to the Eagles, 28-6.

Bath County no match for ‘Hounds

Bath County at Corbin: On paper this game looks like a mismatch. But Corbin Coach Steve Jewell is quick to point out that games are not played on paper, they are played on the field.

“We don’t know a lot about them, but I do know now that if you win you’re in and if you lose you are out, so we have to come out and get going,” said Jewell.

Corbin (8-2) hopes to get going behind the running of senior Matthew Taylor, who broke into the top 15 Class AA runners two weeks ago and came back last week to post a 148 yards against a tough Lexington Christian defense.

Junior Brady Foley is among the state top 10, he had a 108 yards and two touchdowns against the Eagles.

The Redhounds are among the top 10 teams in scoring, defense, scoring margin and pass defense. Corbin is second in scoring defense, allowing 14.5 points per game behind Washington County (14.4).

Hunter Grubb, Josh Coppock, Wes Tipton, Mitchell Frederick, Saxon Okuma, Grant Grigsby, Cody Harp and Matt Jewell lead the defense.

Bath County comes to Gilliam Field with just two wins this year. The Wildcats beat Berea 21-14 and Pendleton County 36-16. Their eight losses came against Nicholas County (48-20), West Carter (39-0), Lewis County (21-8), Prestonsburg (48-13), Shelby Valley (36-35), East Carter (12-10), Morgan County (36-28) and Fleming County (35-28).

The last four losses including a one-point loss to Shelby Valley were all within a touchdown.

Quarterback Clark Kissick has had a lot of success in the second half of the season. He has thrown the ball for 1,524 yards and 12 touchdowns. His main targets are Jared Castle (4 touchdowns), Michael Wells (5), Jason Little (2) and Curren Shrout (1).

The top threat at running back will be Garrett Vinegar, who has five touchdowns on 493 yards. Kissick has three touchdowns running the ball as well as Shrout.

The Wildcats have had success and have played some close games of late, but have they faced a team like the Redhounds. Corbin in a runaway, 55-14.

Colonels could be spoiler

Whitley County at Southwestern: The three-seeded Colonels will be at two-seeded Pulaski Southwestern.

Southwestern got off to a rocky start much like the Colonels. Coach Dale Anderson’s team took on heavy weights Bowling Green, Somerset and Scott, Tn., in the first four weeks of the season.

The Warriors lost all three of those games, but did sandwich a win over East Jessamine during that span. All four games were on the road. Since opening a home span September 17 against Danville, the Warriors are 5-1 with the only setback a 21-14 win over Pulaski County.

Southwestern took down Rockcastle County two weeks ago, 17-14. The Colonels beat the Rockets 28-19 last week. The Warriors have only played three games at the Reservation. They were able to beat Danville (22-19), Lincoln County (23-14), but lost to Pulaski County (21-14). So the Warriors have not had much of a home field advantage this season.

To beat the Warriors, Whitley County has the challenge to slow down quarterback Zack Turpin, who has thrown 11 touchdown passes. He has hit on 73-of-164 passes while throwing seven interceptions.

The Warriors have a running back duo in the likes of Dustin Powell and Cody Mote. Both have six touchdowns on the season. Zack Fowler has five TD’s.

Cody Bramlett will return to action this week looking for 1,000 yards. He enters the game with 14 touchdowns and has 920 yards on 122 carries. Jordan Singleton is close behind with 810 yards and seven touchdowns.

Through the air, the go-to guy is senior Justin Goins, who has 10 touchdowns and over 700 yards on the season. He had three catches against Rockcastle County for 113 yards and two touchdowns.

Other big threats will be Cody Bowlin and Jordan Chute along with sophomore Boston Bryant.

This one will be a hard game to steal on the road, but look for the Colonels to take a 35-34 win.