Boyle County's title hopes still alive following late-season loss
It wasn’t pretty in Danville on Friday night. The #7 Boyle County Rebels hosted the #2 Frederick Douglass Broncos in the final Kroger KSR Game of the Week of the regular season. The Broncos sent a message to the entire Commonwealth with a 37-6 rout on the road. Boyle County got off to a slow start giving up 16 unanswered points in the first quarter. Unfortunately, the rest of the game didn’t get much better than that.
Boyle started the season with six straight wins before falling to Lexington Catholic. The Rebels were looking for a statement victory after a streak of dominating lesser opponents. The season finale was anything but a statement, as Douglass ran all over a less athletic defense. The speed of Douglass was evident; it was too much to overcome for the 4A darlings.
Injuries Stagger Rebels Offense
The Boyle County offense is run by Eastern Kentucky University commit Sage Dawson. Dawson has had a great season of 1,400 passing yards with 25 touchdowns (20 being passing). He’s also run for a total of 400 yards. Over 1,800 all-purpose yards is nothing to scoff at; it puts him among the very best in 4A. However, Frederick Douglass sports the best defense that Dawson had to face all year, and it showed in the first few drives.
In the second quarter, Dawson went down with a knee injury. Dawson wasn’t able to return to the game, and the Boyle offense was stagnant from there on out. All-purpose back Avery Bodner took over at quarterback after the injury. He was able to keep the offense afloat, and he showed a ton of heart throughout the last three quarters.
When asked about having to play Bodner at quarterback, head coach Justin Haddix said, “We really weren’t gonna play him a whole lot, he needed rest he was knocked up. He stepped up and did what you need a leader to do, he stepped up.” The junior had yet to play quarterback since his freshman year at Boyle.
Boyle County’s lone touchdown came on a trick play. Bodner signaled running back Montavin Quisenberry (who recently received UK and UL offers) into motion. Quisenberry then took a jet sweep and faked the run until throwing a dime for six. Quisenberry took a massive hit on the play, which summed up the Rebels well; they will keep on fighting no matter the circumstances.
Looking Ahead to the Playoffs
Boyle County will be a 2-3 seed in the playoffs in 4A. The Rebels have taken home back-to-back state championships behind Coach Justin Haddix. They still have a great chance of taking home their third in a row, but waiting for them in the playoffs is a Lexington Catholic team that already has a win over the Rebels and the undefeated Corbin Redhounds.
Coach Haddix ended the night with this, “You get beat, but the season isn’t over. You have to learn from this and move forward; our guys are going to do that. Do we like losing? No, but it happened; now, how are you going to respond?”
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