Prep Football: Boyle tops Lexington Catholic 21-13 in battle of Class AAAA powers

"We've got to block better. They stacked their defense to stop the run and we just didn't block like we should have," French said. "We also had some chances to put the ball in the end zone and didn't."

It looked like Rees MacShara had put Boyle in solid position to win a lot easier than it did. The Boyle senior went 70 yards for a touchdown on the game's fourth play. MacShara added a 65-yard score on a trick play, had a 57-yard scoring run negated by a penalty and ran 73 yards to set up another score. And that all came in the first half when Boyle built what looked like a comfortable 21-6 lead.

He finished with 237 yards rushing on 19 carries and accounted for 302 yards of Boyle's offense. However, he was limited to 79 yards rushing on 10 carries in the second half.

"Rees is special and got us off to a great start, but we have to finish games," French said.

The Rebels used a little trickery to score their second touchdown just five minutes into the game. Quarterback Boone Goldsmith threw a quick pass to Conner Givhan behind the line of scrimmage. When Givhan handed off to MacShara, Catholic couldn't catch him.

"We surprised them with that play and executed it well," French said.

MacShara's 57-yard run was negated on Boyle's next series or he would have had three scores in 10 plays. That penalty set up a short Catholic drive that ended with Benton Hupman's 23-yard field goal early in period two.

MacShara's 73-yard sprint set up Goldsmith's 1-yard score with 5 minutes, 10 seconds left in the first half and gave Boyle what seemed like a safe 21-3 lead. Catholic, though, got a 42-yard field goal from Hupman with :02 left in the half to make it 21-6.

"Our offense didn't do what it was supposed to do to end the half. We gave up two sacks and that put them in position to get the field goal," French said.

The Knights (4-3) had a 72-yard, 13-play scoring drive that ended with quarterback Nic Ward's 1-yard run to cut the lead to 21-13 on the fourth quarter's first play.

"We let the game get to close and then we had another chance to put it out of reach and didn't. That's frustrating," French said.

MacShara's 27-yard run helped move the Rebels to a first down at the Catholic 20, but the Knights held on fourth down at the 11 with 5:39 left.

Ward, who was 21-for-33 passing for 194 yards with completions to seven receivers, got the Knights to the 31 before the Rebels forced four straight incompletions and then ran out the clock.

"Our defense bent but did not break," French said. "We could have done some things better, but we won and that's what counts."

Linebackers Steven Campbell, Lamar Dawson and Bryan Ferrell led Boyle with seven tackles each and limited Catholic to only 11 yards rushing on 13 carries.

"Overall, our defense was pretty good because Catholic has a good offensive team," French said. "But they exposed some things both offensively and defensively that we have to do better if we want to get to where we want to be when the season ends."

STATISTICS

at Danville

First Quarter

Boyle — Rees MacShara 70 run (Phillip Barsotti kick), 11:12.
Boyle — MacShara 65 pass from Boone Goldsmith (Barsotti kick), 7:02.

Second Quarter

Lexington Catholic — Benton Hupman 23 field goal, 9:43.
Boyle — Goldsmith 1 run (Barsotti kick), 5:10.

Lexington Catholic — Hupman 42 field goal, 02.6.

Fourth Quarter

Lexington Catholic — Nic Ward 1 run (Hupman kick), 11:55.

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING—Catholic, Greg Raglin 12-13, Nic Ward 10-5, Lee Ramsey 1-1. Boyle, Rees MacShara 19-237, Lamar Dawson 1-9, Boone Goldsmith 10-minus 27, Chris Cook 4-3, Zach Hester 5-16.

PASSING—Catholic, Nic Ward 21-33-0-194. Boyle, Goldsmith 5-8-092.

RECEIVING—Catholic, Bryce Andrews 3-27, Ryne Least 7-103, Raglin 1-21, Billy Jack Brown 4-22, Lee Ramsey 3-11, Benton Hupmon 2-6, Aaron Price 1-4. Boyle, MacShara 0-65, Dawson 1-8, Logan Tritapoe 1-8, Conner Givhan 1-minus 6, Cook 1-3, Jarred Harrington 1-14.