PRE-GAME HUDDLE

 The first district games of the season are in. Williamsburg defeated Berea 54-6, but Lynn Camp and Whitley County fell to the bottom of the pack in their respective districts. The Wildcats lost at Campbellsville 14-0, while the Colonels lost at Harlan County, 41-27.

Corbin played on the road at No. 2 Hazard (Class A) and lost a heartbreaker, 35-28.

Lynn Camp has the week off before hosting the Clinton County Bulldogs and Corbin will host 6A foe, Clark County Friday night. However, Whitley County and Williamsburg will play district games. Whitley County will host Class 5A, District 8, favorite Clay County while Williamsburg travels to Clinton County.

•The Colonels will have a tough task stopping the high scoring Tigers of Clay County this week. Clay County comes to Whitley County with a 4-1 record averaging 40 points per game.

The Tigers routed North Laurel 48-0 in a district contest last week in Manchester. Clay County has one of the top quarterbacks in the state in senior John Wilson. Wilson has hit on 40-of-90 passes for 11 touchdowns.

His main target is senior John V. Hooker, who has six touchdown catches, but C.J. Miller, Noah Reid and Joey Dezarn have touchdowns in the record books as well.

Miller is the team’s leading rusher with eight touchdowns, 530 yards on 47 carries. Reid has five TD’s rushing the ball while Wilson has kept the pigskin 28 times and has 195 yards and a touchdown.

Clay County has 17 take-aways in their first five games, 10 fumble recoveries and seven interceptions. Hooker has three interceptions while Travis Smith leads the Tigers in fumble recoveries with four.

“They are big, strong and fast,” said Whitley County Coach Jim Black. “They have a lot of weapons.”

“If we want to win this game we have to help ourselves by not making the mistakes we have made in the past weeks,” he added.

Whitley County got some good play from seniors Justin Goins and Jordan Singleton last week, but it was Boston Bryant who played a tremendous game on defense. The sophomore linebacker was all over the Black Bears when they had the football. Senior Jake Rhoades also played well on defense.

Jim’s Pick: Whitley County 34-28.

•It will be another fun week for the Williamsburg Yellow Jackets when they travel to Clinton County. Coach Jamie Miller’s team is winless after six games. The Bulldogs opened the season with a loss to Berea, 8-6 and have gone steadily downhill. “They have had a lot of injuries,” said Williamsburg Coach Jerry Herron.

Clinton County did give the Leslie County Eagles a tough contest before losing, 39-20 and went down to the wire with Caverna before losing 26-20.

“They are hard to run against,” said Herron. “They like to spread you out and take away the run.”

That could mean a big game for senior J.P. Payne, who had three touchdowns last week against the Berea Pirates from back-up quarterback Logan Hamblin. Hamblin threw five touchdowns in a 54-6 win. Kevin Hoffman and Chris Lowrie also had TD catches.

Jim’s pick: Williamsburg 55-6.

•Can Corbin tag the George Rogers Clark Cardinals with their third straight defeat? The Cardinals, a 6A football team, opened the season with wins over Bryan Station (46-18), Montgomery County (41-19) and Dunbar (49-21) before losing to Lafayette (21-9) and Scott County (25-15) last week.

The Redounds’ defense will have to keep an eye on running back Pokey Harris, who has seven touchdowns to lead the Cardinals. Quarterback Andrew Dini has four rushing touchdowns and has completed 39-of-68 passes for six others. He has thrown the football for 649 yards.

Also in the Cardinals’ backfield is Mason Jones, Darian Farris and Darius Skinner, all are capable of a quick break away.

Dini’s favorite targets are Corey Rogers, who has 16 catches and four touchdowns and Skinner who has 14 catches and three touchdowns.

“They have a lot of speed,” said Corbin Coach Steve Jewell. “They have a lot of quickness with their receivers and a quick running back. Their quarterback runs the ball extremely well, just like this Combs did for Hazard.”

“You have a team with a lot of talent and you don’t know which team you are going to get,” said Jewell.

Jim’s pick: Corbin 28-20