Owensboro football secured its spot in the district championship by defeating the Cougars with a dynamic offensive performance, winning 42-7 in front of its home crowd.
The Red Devils wasted no time getting their offense going, quickly working their way up the field and scoring on a nine-yard rushing touchdown by senior Javius Taylor to take a 7-0 lead with 10:38 left in the first quarter.
A bad snap forced Grayson County back to the six on the ensuing drive, before some confusion on fourth down put Owensboro at the seven. On the next play senior Tramel Barksdale ran it in to give them a 14-0 lead with 8:18 left in the first quarter.
On the following drive the Cougars put Owensboro on the 30 with their punt, but two plays later junior Kenyatta Carbon scored on an 11-yard rushing touchdown to take a 21-0 lead with 5:50 left in the first quarter.
Carbon earned his second touchdown of the day to close out the first quarter, taking a toss for a five-yard touchdown to make it a 28-0 game with 2:48 left in the first quarter.
The Red Devils stayed hot in the second quarter, as junior quarterback Kasey Boone connected with junior Khalil Rogers for a 16-yard touchdown to make it a 35-0 game with 7:20 left in the first half.
After walking into halftime with an insurmountable lead, Owensboro continued to expand on it in the second half.
With just under six minutes left, Taylor earned his second touchdown of the day with a five-yard run to make it a 42-0 game.
Grayson County finally put one on the scoreboard with just under seven minutes left to play, as senior quarterback Kaylor Decker used an 18-yard run to make it a 42-7 ballgame.
With the running clock enforced Owensboro just worked the clock for the remainder of the game and walked away with a 42-7 win.
“I thought that we came out and executed the way we needed to,” Head Coach Jay Fallin said. “[We needed] to take care of this one and to get ready to move on into next week and create some momentum for us going into next week.”
Boone finished the game with 63 yards on 4-5 passing to go along with a touchdown.
Barksdale led the way in the backfield, rushing for 76 yards and a touchdown on six carries.
Carbon and Taylor also had strong games in the backfield , earning two touchdowns each.
Fallin was pleased with a number of players offensively, including a now healthy Taylor who finished the night with a pair of touchdowns.
“Kenyatta and Tramel did well, I thought Kasey did well and I thought the offensive line did well,” Fallin said. “I thought Khalil had a nice catch and score… Bird had two rushing touchdowns tonight. Good to see him get back in the mix there.”
Fallin was also thrilled with how clean they played on both sides of the ball, not getting penalized once throughout all 48 minutes. This is especially crucial in the postseason, when every yard counts.
“If you say you want to be a championship team you can’t be committing penalties,” Fallin said. “Some penalties are part of the game, but especially the avoidable ones like procedural penalties, false starts. Things like that we can avoid, we have to avoid.”
They’ll find themselves in the district championship next week, as they play the winner of Graves County vs. Breckinridge County at 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 12.
“You just take it a day at a time,” Fallin said. “Obviously you want to be playing with a lot of momentum at the right time. We just gotta take it a day at a time. We’re going to give them tomorrow off and Saturday night off and get back at it Sunday.”
