The Boyle County machine is rolling.

Boyle throttled Western Hills for the second time in a month, taking out the Wolverines 62-14 on a cold night at Rebel Stadium.

The Rebels ran 33 run plays for 371 yards and scored eight times on the ground. Western Hills had just 167 yards of offense on 49 plays.

“I thought our offense played really well, they came out and really were in-tune, timing was down, execution was great and I thought they did a really nice job,” Boyle County head coach Chuck Smith said.

Western Hills struggled to gain yards from the start on a tough Boyle defense. After Western Hills three and out on the opening drive, Boyle scored on a 23-yard play action pass, Reed Lanter to Nick Walker.

“We wanted to come out and fire a shot because it kind of gets us going, gets our momentum up,” Walker said. “When we get our momentum up it’s hard to stop us. We got that O-Line, our O-Line is probably the best in the state. When we’re running and have the passing game going, it’s hard to stop us.”

Boyle would score again on its next possession a nine-yard run from Landen Bartleson.

Walker said that everyone on the team has the same mentality: Win a state title.

“We knew it was going to be cold, we just want a state championship,” he said. “We all have the same mentality out here. We’re really, we’ve got a good team this year and everybody depends on each other. If we get that machine going, it’s hard to stop us.”

Western Hills’ best play of the game came when WanDale Robinson worked his magic on the ensuing kickoff, taking it 70 yards for a score to cut the Rebels’ lead to 13-7.

“I thought that defensively we had our moments,” Smith said. “(Robinson) is a good player, he’s going to get his plays, I don’t like him to get any plays but he definitely got his plays. He’s a good football plays.”

The Rebels wouldn’t kick it deep the rest of the night.

“Special teams, I was disappointed with our kickoff team,” Smith said. “We’ve just got to be better than that. We can’t give our opponents the ball on the 45 yard line and expect to beat really good football teams. That part was disappointing, but overall, it was a good team.”

But from that point on, it was all Rebels.

Bartleson and Tanner Crawford would each score three times in the victory, and Reiley Colwick had a seven-yard score to end the first half, putting the Rebels ahead 48-7.

Midway through the second quarter, Walker had one of the more exciting plays of the night: Lanter hit him on a quick pass to the right side of the field and Walker hurdled a defender to gain 12 yards.

“I told myself, I dropped that deep ball over there and I said ‘I need to redeem myself,’” he said. “I just felt like it would kind of get my guys hype. That and I’ve been wanting to do it for a long time.”

That’s something that Walker has done all season, Smith said: He motivates his teammates.

“Nick has played super all year long,” Smith said. “He’s really played lights out. He’s had a great season. He’s been a guy that just gets us going, he’s been our spark plug. He carries a lot of emotion, has good charisma. He just does a really good job. He’s had a great season.”

Andrew Sacco added the final score of the game for Boyle, a 15-yard run in the fourth quarter. Lanter and the Rebels wouldn’t throw a pass in the second half — and they didn’t need to.

The Wolverines did, and the Rebels took advantage. Walker had an interception and teammate Nathan Snyder had one in the end zone to end the first half.

“It’s hard to beat a team twice,” Walker said. “We still had to gameplan and we knew they were going to try something different. We knew they were going to pass a bit more and they did complete some passes, but we stuck it out and did our best.”

The Rebels will have another rematch game next week against Lexington Catholic. The Knights took down Garrard County 56-16 on Friday.

“It’s going to be a tough game. When there’s only eight teams left, anybody can win,” Smith said. “They score so many points, that’s what will make it so difficult. We’ve got to play our best football to beat them.”

 

Team stats

At Boyle County

WH 7     0     7     0     —     14

BC 27     21     7     7    —     62

WH BC

Plays 49 44

Rushing 26-77 33-374

Passing 7-19-2 9-12-0

Passing yds 90 104

Total offense 167 475

First downs 9 22

Penalties 6-75 7-50

Fumbles 5-1 3-1