Corbin wins big in opening round of playoffs; Whitley’s season ends

The first round of the Kentucky high school football playoffs has produced a mixed bag of results for local teams.

One easily won its first round match-up Friday night. Another didn’t have to play in the first round at all after the team, which would have been its first round opponent, canceled the rest of its football season about three weeks ago.

A third saw its season come to a close with its first round defeat by a district foe.

Corbin

The Corbin Redhounds ran their overall record to 11-0 following a 40-8 victory over the Wayne County Cardinals Friday night. During their first meeting of the season, Corbin defeated Wayne County by a score of 42-0.

The Redhounds scored touchdowns on their first five possessions of the game Friday night, and six touchdowns overall with their final touchdown coming more than midway through the third quarter triggering a running clock for the remain-der of the game.

The Cardinals finally found the end zone for their first and only touchdown of the game with about four minutes to go in the game, and successfully completed the two-point conversion.

Overall, the Redhounds had 240 yards rushing and 146 passing yards while allowing 101 rushing yards and 66 passing yards.

Starting quarterback Cameron Combs completed 9 or 15 passing attempts for 146 yards in the air, and passed for three touchdowns. He added five rushing attempts for 41 yards.

Seth Huff led the Redhound rushing attack with 103 yards gained on 12 rushing attempts and two touchdowns. Huff also had one pass reception for 22 yards.

Ethan Gregory had two rushing attempts for 41 yards. Kade Elman had one rush-ing attempt for seven yards. Treyveon Longmire had a single seven-yard rush that scored a touchdown.

Seth Mills led all Redhound receivers with three pass receptions for 63 yards and two touchdowns. He also contributed three rushes for 41 yards. Zander Curry had three pass receptions for 34 yards and one touchdown. Carter Stewart had one pass reception for 21 yards, and Elam contributed one pass reception for six yards.

The Redhounds got through the first round of the playoffs without any injuries, and Corbin Head Coach Tom Greer noted that the team’s depth is good.

“We felt like our seniors did a great job leading our football team. We came out and took care of business. I am pleased with all three phases of our football team,” Greer said.

“That game is behind us, we have to get ready for the next one.”

Lincoln County defeated Knox Central by a score of 49-22 Friday to advance to the second round of the playoffs this coming Friday where they will take on the Redhounds at Campbell Field in Corbin at 7:30 p.m.

In week 9 of the season on Oct. 15, the Redhounds traveled to Lincoln County where they defeated the Patriots by a score of 42-21 in what was their second closest game of the season score wise.

During their first match-up, the teams were deadlocked at halftime tied at 21, be-fore Corbin came out in the second half with a dominating performance.

“Lincoln County has a really good football team. They have 16 seniors, who are coming back from last year. We knew they were going to be really good. We had to make adjustments at halftime and we did that,” Greer explained.

“The one plus for us this week is we are playing at home. We have to do a great job defensively getting them off the field. We just have to continue to execute at a high rate like we are offensively.”

Greer encouraged Redhound Nation to turn out for Friday’s game.

“It will be a big game Friday. We will need all of Redhound Nation out packing the stands,” Greer added.

Williamsburg

The Williamsburg Jackets had a night off last Friday after Lynn Camp canceled the remainder of its season, and will square off this coming Friday against Pine-ville, which defeated Harlan County last Thursday by a score of 29-26.

This sets up a rematch this coming Friday at Finley Legion Field in the second round of the Class A Football Playoffs.

In their first match up of the season on Oct. 15, the Jackets pulled out a 21-13 win over the Mountain Lions with a last-minute defensive stand.

“It was a win,” said Williamsburg Coach Jerry Herron, Jr. after the Oct. 15 game “They (Pineville) played hard.”

Pineville had driven deep into Williamsburg territory with less than a minute re-maining in the game, and was in a position to score the potentially tying touch-down.

Freshman defensive back Cooper Prewitt came up with the interception in the en-dzone to secure the win.

Williamsburg is 7-3 on the season, coming off a 35-21 loss at Perry County Cen-tral on Oct. 29.

Following both the win over Pineville and the loss at Perry Central, Herron said the Jackets had to get back to work on the practice field.

“The biggest thing we’ve got to do is we’ve got to fix ourself,” Herron said fol-lowing the Pineville game.

Pineville comes into the game with an 8-3 record after the win over Harlan.

The Mountain Lions made it happen on the ground, rushing 46 times for 414 yards and four touchdowns.

Devon Morris carried the majority of the load, carrying the ball 23 times for 242 yards and two touchdowns.

In the game against Williamsburg, Morris ran for 102 yards and two touchdowns on the night.

Whitley County

The Colonels season ended Friday night with a road loss to Pulaski County’s Southwestern Warriors by a score of 41-6. In week eight of the season, the Colo-nels lost to the Warriors by a score of 50-16.

“They were really good. We knew that going in. They are, by far, I think the best team in our district. I think they are one of the top teams in 5A in the whole state,” Colonels Head Coach Zeke Eier said after the game.

The Colonels ran 46 plays on offense for a total of 151 yards, including 20 pass-ing plays for 109 yards and 26 rushing plays for 42 yards.

One high point of the night was Sam Harp, who had 54 yards receiving, which was enough to move him into second place for the most receiving yards in one season behind only Darrell Bowman’s record setting season in the 1988.

Eier noted that Harp is an even better kid than he is a player.

“I think he has a lot of potential coming back next year to break even more rec-ords,” Eier added.

The Colonels’ season ended Friday with an overall record of 2-9 in Eier’s first season as head coach.

“Our offense started coming together at the end of the season. We were coming together. The last three games we played a lot better offensively,” Eier said.

For Whitley County seniors, Eier was their third head coach in four years.

“I love those seniors. I am so thankful for them. I told them that,” Eier said.

Now that the season is over, Eier said that the coaching staff will go back and watch all of the games again to evaluate what the team did right, and what it did wrong.

After taking a break to let their bodies recover from the season, Eier said the Colonels will hit the weight room.

“We have to get bigger. We have to get stronger. I think our guys realize that we can play with everybody. We just have to find that extra little umph to get over,” he said.

“We are trying to build something really special here that is going to be long last-ing. I told them that guys who work really hard, are great students and great kids are going to be the foundation of what we want to build here.”

Eier added that he just appreciates his players, who are great to be around.

“I feel like I haven’t worked a day yet just because of how great they are. Whitley County has special people. They really do. I think we can build something special here. We have to just keep working hard, and just be blue collar people like we talked about and just go back to work,” he noted.