Big game, big celebration, big crown for a really big Highlands for win at centennial CovCath

By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter

The first home football game in Covington Catholic’s centennial year and the 78th renewal of Northern Kentucky’s premier high school football rivalry deserved a celebration like this. The way it happened Friday in Park Hills. At Griffin Stadium on Wooten Field.

There were the three Selection.com Skyrider parachutists dropping in from thousands of feet above the stadium with the game ball, the coins for the toss and flags honoring both CovCath’s 100 years and America. The Bengals were here, with cheerleaders and mascot handing out souvenirs. All the Cincinnati TV stations were here. Highlands’ Executive Charter team buses were here, looking all the world like a visiting NFL team for the trip from Ft. Thomas.

“Awesome,” said CovCath Coach Eddie Eviston of the big-game atmosphere. “Ohio State-Michigan, Texas-Oklahoma, Kentucky-Louisville, Georgia-Alabama,” Highlands’ Coach Bob Sphire called the “rivalry” and the big crowd and what the come-from-behind win meant to his now 2-0 Bluebirds.

“Come-from-behind” after the inspired Colonels, fueled by the spectacular pre-game, rocketed into a 14-0 lead just a bit over five minutes into this game. Two giant plays – a 74-yard quick TD strike from Cash Harney to Nick Krallman had the Colonels on top in just over a minute. Then after the first of Logan Sanning’s two interceptions, the Colonels’ Harney did it again, running it in from 47 yards out on terrific up-the-gut cutback that had him beat the entire Birds’ defenders to the end zone.

A gut punch for a pound-it-on-the ground Highlands team? Not exactly. It took the Birds 23 plays in two series to get on the board on a Rio (Don’t call him Mario) Litmer keeper after faking out the CovCath defenders on the RPO (run-pass option) that the slick ballhandling Litmer runs so well. Does he have it or does he not?

“He fooled me one of those times,” Sphire said after a Litmer fake that had Colonel defenders crushing the running back without the ball as Litmer scampered off untouched, undetected.

“Watch the ball,” the CovCath coaches kept pleading. Easy to say, not so easy to do in the heat of the game. “We work on that every day,” Litmer said of his read and pulling the ball back. And as much as he’d like to throw the ball, the Colonels had taken that away so Litmer said they’d do what their coaches told them all week: “Let our O-line win the game for us.”

Not a bad thought with a group averaging a Division I college 300 pounds a man. “Best O-line in the state,” said Jack White, the nose-guard lookalike at tailback at 5-8 (stretched, he says) and 190 pounds who runs downhill and looks like he’s looking for someone to run into and run over after building himself up from 162 pounds a year ago.

“I ate, Bro,” he says when asked how he did that. “And put on a ton of weight,” which is fitting because now he’s running behind more than a ton of the big uglies led by 6-foot-4, 305-pound junior Max Merz, recruited by Louisville. “He’s a beast,” said White, who would know after running for 148 yards on 24 carries according to the Highlands’ stats.

Almost all through the A-gap (next to center). If he wants to cut outside, or if any of the Highlands’ multiple tough-running backs do, they need a letter from their coach. And Sphire isn’t giving them one. Four off-seasons of working in the weight room has made it clear how this Highlands’ team is going to win football games.

By playing, as Sphire calls it, “bully-ball.” Even down 14 early. “Line up and play bully-ball,” he told his guys. “That’s not something everybody can do.”

But with “a ton of maturity” and “having put in the time,” Sphire says, “and the hard work, they refuse to lose, and they don’t get rattled.” So much so, they were leading 17-14 at halftime in the process of running – and we mean running – up 25 straight points on CovCath.

Highlands doesn’t get rattled but they do the rattling, as it turns out, especially against a young, undersized CovCath team with lots of newcomers learning what it means “to play up to the standard,” Eviston says of last year’s team that won its first 14 games all the way to the state finals. “They saw the standard but now they’ve got to live up to it.”

Highlands’ stats had the Birds pounding for 290 yards on the ground (and 83 in the air) for 22 first downs. CovCath stats had the Colonels with 14 first downs on 290 total yards of offense with 14 first downs.

“I’ll take that all night long,” Sphire said. Certainly he’ll take that final 32-22 margin, especially after CovCath came back to trail, 25-22 before a clinching Highlands’ final score, although “I don’t like that chippy stuff” in a game that saw some jawing and posturing the way rivalry games go.

Highlands won its 51st game to CovCath’s 27 games in the all-time series for teams with 31 state championships (23 Highlands, eight CovCath) between them.

Harney, a tough, athletic junior in only his second quarterback start at CovCath (although he started five times as a freshman at Beechwood), accounted for all three Colonel TD with two on the ground on 118 yards on 11 carries and another 162 yards and a TD on eight-of-15 passing.

Highlands takes its 2-0 record next week against 2-0 Ryle in another feature matchup while CovCath, now 0-2 after losing to 6A Ryle last week, has 6A Simon Kenton on its dance card next week.

“You gotta’ keep grinding,” Eviston said. “The win was in our reach . . . we’re a young team . . . we had a lot of growth the last seven days . . . but we’ve got to learn every play matters.”

No better way to learn that lesson than to watch how Highlands does it – grinding play after grinding play.

SCORING SUMMARY

COVCATH 14 0 8 0—22
HIGHLANDS 7 10 8 7–32

COVCATH: Krallman 74 pass from Harney (Weitzel kick good)

COVCATH: Harney 47 run (Weitzel kick good)

HIGHLANDS: Litmer 5 run (Surrey 2-point conversion run)

HIGHLANDS: Safety after CovCath snaps ball out of the end zone

HIGHLANDS: White 5 run (Nickelman kick good)

HIGHLANDS: Surrey 3 run (Surrey reception for 2-point PAT)

COVCATH: Harney 20 run (Harney to Kruer for 2-poit PAT)

HIGHLANDS: Williams 4 run (Nickelman kick good)

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