Boyle clearly best in convincing win over Ohio power
Published 1:23 pm Monday, September 9, 2024
LAKEWOOD, Ohio – It has been quite some time since a Boyle County victory has been considered an upset, and it may be a while before it happens again.
Within the context of any of the major national high school football rankings, Boyle’s convincing victory over one of the highest-ranked teams in the country would be considered an upset, but was it?
It could be that the Rebels simply weren’t ranked highly enough, and it could be that their 38-21 win over Lakewood (Ohio) St. Edward will be the springboard that allows them to leap into the upper tier of the nation’s very best teams.
“We feel like we’ve got a really good football team, a really good football program, and it’s not a one-year deal, it’s sustained success,” Boyle coach Justin Haddix said. “People around the country don’t give us a whole lot of credit for that, and I think we’ve got great players.”
Boyle rose to the challenge presented Saturday by what was almost certainly the toughest opponent it has ever faced to earn a victory that cemented the Rebels’ place as the top team in Kentucky and gave them a memory for a lifetime and motivation for the rest of their season.
“This just shows us that we’re not only No. 1 in Kentucky, we’re deserving of our national rank, so we need to play with that fire under us and not take any opponents for less than what they are,” Boyle center Samuel Wade said.
St. Edward had won the past three championships in Ohio’s Division I and was No. 12 in the most recent MaxPreps national rankings. Boyle, which has won the past four Kentucky Class 4A titles, was ranked No. 52 by MaxPreps.
Yet the Rebels were the better team Saturday at First Federal Lakewood Stadium, where their offense moved the ball with both precision and creativity and their defense pitched a shutout in the second half as they outscored the Eagles 17-0.
They knew they were perceived as the underdogs both by their opponent and back at home, and they did not care.
“We told them to believe in our circle, trust our circle and the things they can accomplish and do, and they did that,” Haddix said. “We’ve got some really good football players, and they play hard for their school and their families and the people that support them.”
Playing outside Kentucky for the first time, Boyle (3-0) was outsized and outnumbered by St. Edward (2-1), which regularly plays high-level competition from outside Ohio and which had won 20 consecutive games against out-of-state opponents and had not lost a home game since 2021. But the Rebels were not outworked, and they were not outcoached.
“We don’t care about who we’ve got to play. We’re gonna go out there and fight all 48 minutes,” said Montavin Quisenberry, who was in on four of five Boyle touchdowns. “We’ve got dogs on our team. Everybody does their job.”
Quisenberry shined brightest under the spotlight of this game, perhaps taking the early season lead in the race for the Mr. Football award.
The West Virginia commit ran for three TDs and threw for another as he lined up primarily at running back and quarterback. He ran the ball 25 times for a game-high 141 yards, caught three passes for 35 yards and completed both of his pass attempts for 89 yards.
“I knew I was going to have a lot of eyes on me. I just knew I had to come out here and do my job and give it all I got and just prove a lot of people wrong,” he said.
Demauriah Brown caught six passes for 64 yards and had 55 rushing yards on 13 attempts, and Baylor Murphy completed 10 of 16 passes for 110 yards and a touchdown.
Quisenberry and Jakeem Ray had interceptions with returns of 67 and 36 yards in the second half that led to Boyle touchdowns, and the Rebels’ defense held the Eagles to 58 yards in the second half.
But the most noteworthy thing about the way the Rebels won this game may have been the way they methodically moved the ball behind its stable of playmakers and an offensive line that imposed its will on larger opponents on the other side of the ball.
“We’ve got a group of five guys up front that just goes to work every day, comes ready to work,” Wade said. “We put in the work in the offseason, and it makes itself apparent. I mean, we were able to move them, we were able to run the ball on them. I think we just killed it up front, and that’s what made the game go our way.”
Boyle scored on seven of its first eight possessions, failing to do so only when time ran out in the first half. The Rebels had some big plays along the way, but their scoring drives looked like this:
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13 plays (9 runs), 80 yards, 7:08.
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14 plays (7 runs), 80 yards, 7:18.
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4 plays (3 runs), 65 yards, 1:17.
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10 plays (9 runs), 66 yards, 5:26.
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9 plays (8 runs), 59 yards, 4:11.
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3 plays (2 runs), 2 yards, 1:38.
The first of the very short drives was capped by Boyle’s biggest play from scrimmage, a trick play that resulted in a 69-yard pass from Quisenberry to a wide-open Geordon Brown. The second followed Quisenberry’s 67-yard interception return to the St. Edward 9-yard line and ended when Andrew Carr banked a 24-yard field goal off the left upright to put the game out of reach.
The other four drives were conventional marches that helped the Rebels possess the ball for 30:25, nearly twice as long as the Eagles.
“You know, it took everybody,” Haddix said. “You have to have the illusion of throwing … and maybe the receivers didn’t catch a whole lot of balls or this one or that one didn’t play as much, but we just did what we do. It took all 11, and we played Rebel football.”
Boyle established the run as they drove the opening kickoff into the wind coming off Lake Erie, and Murphy finished the drive by lobbing the ball over the line to Seneca Driver in the end zone for an 11-yard touchdown.
St. Edward answered the Rebels’ three first-half scores with efficient drives of their own as its offensive front controlled the line of scrimmage just as Boyle’s did.
Thomas Csanyi, who was 10 for 17 for 90 yards, threw for one touchdown and ran for another and star running back Brandon White, who left the game in the third quarter with an injury, got a rushing TD.
But the Eagles could not answer in the second half. Their first three series ended with a punt and two picks, and they averaged only 2.4 yards per play after halftime.
“I thought it was going to be a close game, and what it really came down to was our defense,” Wade said. “Our defense did a great job in the second half. I mean, they shut them out. That was just real big for us.”
The Rebels outgained the Eagles 397 yards (198 rushing, 199 passing) to 229.
Then, having made their statement, they boarded their buses and headed south to get on with the rest of their season – they return to action within the state Friday at Scott County – and their pursuit of a fifth straight state title, carrying with them the memories of what became an extraordinary road trip in every way.
“Everybody’s going to talk about this game for a lifetime,” Haddix said. “I would say (it’s) one of the biggest wins in Boyle County school history.”
Scoring summary
Boyle County 7 14 7 10 – 38
St. Edward 7 14 0 0 – 21
First Quarter
Boyle – Seneca Driver 11 pass from Baylor Murphy (Andrew Carr kick), 4:52.
St. Edward – Luke Hess 23 pass from Thomas Csanyi (Kellen Moyer kick), 1:10.
Second Quartert
Boyle – Montavin Quisenberry 2 run (Carr kick), 5:52.
St. Edward – Brandon White 2 run (Moyer kick), 3:00.
Boyle – Geordon Brown 69 pass from Quisenberry (Carr kick), 1:43.
St. Edward – Csanyi 11 run (Moyer kick), :29.
Third Quarter
Boyle – Quisenberry 7 run (Carr kick), 4:32.
Fourth Quarter
Boyle – Quisenberry 3 run (Carr kick), 9:00.
Boyle – FG Carr 24, 4:30.