LCC awaits 'game of the year'

Letcher County Central defenders Blake Conn, Kevin Wurschmidt, and Travis Stephens teamed up for a tackle in the Cougars' win over Leslie County. (Photo by Chris Anderson) Letcher County Central easily defeated non-district foe Leslie County 47-0 to improve its record to 4-1 (2-1 in district), but the competition will be stronger this Friday when the Cougars host district leader Whitley County at Ermine.

Whitley County improved to 2-0 in district play last Friday by totally dominating the visiting Perry County Central Commodores, 48-7. The Commodores, who beat the Cougars earlier this season, would have had a leg up in the district if they could have beaten Whitley County. Instead, Commodores quarterback Jordon Amos got hurt early in the game and Perry Central, now 1- 1 in the district, could never get on track without its leader.

Perry Central's loss sets up the game of the year between Letcher Central and Whitley County in Week Six. If the Cougars can beat Whitley County they will be 3-1 in district play while Whitley must still host Clay County at home. Perry Central still has games at home against North Laurel and at Clay County. Clay County still has to travel to Whitley County. North Laurel is 0-3 in district play.

Leslie County came into last Friday's game struggling at 0-4 with blowout losses to Lynn Camp, Clay County, McCreary Central and Middlesboro. The Eagles received the opening kickoff and quickly went three and out. More trouble for Leslie County came quickly as the ball was snapped over the punter's head and the Cougars recovered on the Eagles' two-yard line. Before you could say Tim Couch, Chase Adams took the ball in for a quick 6-0 Cougar lead with 10:57 left in the first quarter. From there, the Eagles were under pressure all night from the Cougars defense and quickly faced another punt on their next possession.

This time the Cougars weren't as fortunate and fumbled the ball on their own 17. The Eagle's good fortune didn't last long as the Cougars came up with a huge sack all the way back on the 45 yard line and forced another punt. Chase Adams returned the kick all the way to the endzone to give the Cougars a 13-0 lead with 6:10 left in the first quarter. James Gose, seeing his first action as kicker, connected on the extra point.

The Eagles had to punt again and the Cougars did the same on the next possession after the passing game had trouble getting going. After taking over on downs, the Eagles quickly turned the ball over on an interception by Greg Collins. Deep in Eagle territory, Charlie Banks hit Dustin Brown in stride for a 17 yard touchdown at the start of the second quarter. The score was set up by two pretty fakes by Banks that threw off the defense. Gose tacked on the extra point and it was 20-0.

From there, the statistics continued to mount for the Cougars. After forcing another Eagle punt, the Cougars start another drive from their own 41. After Banks hit Chase Adams with a pass on the Eagle 19 yard line, it took one play for Banks to connect with Michael Frazier on another scoring strike. The lead was 27-0 after Gose nailed another point after.

After the Eagles sent starting quarterback Jimmy Joe Morgan to the bench and replaced him with freshman Troy Napier, Napier connected on his first pass but Greg Collins would come up with his second interception of the night on the second throw. Now playing with five freshmen in the game the Cougars were holding their own.

Leslie County forced Charlie Banks to fumble on the next drive, but the Eagles quickly fumbled it back and Richard Shepherd recovered at the Eagles 33. The offense wasted no time as Banks hit Stephens with a shuffle pass down to the Eagle 16 yard line before connect on his third touchdown of the game when he hit Chase Adams from 14 yards out. Gose hit another point after and it was 34-0 with 4:23 left in the half.

After taking over again on their own 30, it took the Cougars only one play to get to the Eagles 28 as Banks hit Kevin Wurschmidt on a beautiful pass. Banks then hit Dustin Brown on the 10 yard line. Banks spun away from two defenders to score with two seconds left in the half. Another Gose kick made it 41-0 at the break.

Under KHSAA rules, the clock was allowed to run continuously after the break and it was a good thing for the Eagles because the Cougars could have put up 80 points.

On their first possession after halftime the starters would got one more shot on offense. That was all they would need as Charlie Banks connected with Dustin Brown over the middle for a 61 yard scoring play and a 47-0 Cougar lead.

The Cougars then turned the controls over to freshman Logan Johnson for the remainder of the game as well as some other freshman who would get their first action. Drew Bentley, Matt Boggs, Tyler Combs, and several others all saw action, and Corey Dollarhide intercepted a pass on the Eagles' last play of the game.

Charlie Banks took advantage of the Cougars' passingoriented game plan as he hit on 14-20 for 278 yards and five touchdowns. Three of those went to Dustin Brown, who had three catches for 101 yards and three touchdowns.