The Newport Central Catholic football team lost five of its first six games this season, but the players didn’t let it shake their confidence going into Class 2A district play.
The Thoroughbreds showed they’re still one of the state’s top 2A teams with a 38-21 win over district rival Holy Cross on Friday at Newport Stadium.
NewCath is now 3-5 overall and 2-0 in district play. Holy Cross is 3-4 and 0-1.
“We haven’t really got going this season until now,” said NewCath junior running back Chris Kelly. “We started out playing 5A and 6A schools that kind of wore us down, but when we play teams our size we do really good.”
NewCath had 376 rushing yards in Friday’s game with sophomore quarterback Brady Hightchew getting a career-high 217 yards on 25 carries and Kelly picking up 159 yards on 25 carries.
The Thoroughbreds were running the ball so well that Hightchew didn’t throw a single pass during the entire second half.
“Our (offensive) linemen played a great game, like always, and our wide receivers blocked down field for us really good,” said Kelly, who scored four of his team’s five touchdowns.
NewCath’s blocking scheme caused problems for the Holy Cross defense all night.
“It’s a problem that we can fix,” Kozerski said, “and we have to fix it very quickly or it’s going to be taken advantage of over and over.”
Holy Cross got the game’s first touchdown on a 1-yard run by senior Brayson Smith late in the first quarter. But NewCath ran off 31 unanswered points after that with Hightchew leading the way.
Hightchew threw a 39-yard touchdown pass to junior Brian Doyle and had several breakaway runs that set up touchdowns for Kelly.
“Them focusing on stopping Chris left a lot of big holes for me, and I just took advantage of that,” Hightchew said.
In the fourth quarter, Holy Cross senior quarterback Markel Walker threw a 15-yard touchdown pass to Josh Jasper to trim NewCath’s lead to 31-14. But Kelly scored his fourth touchdown of the game a few minutes later.
After Walker got the game’s final touchdown on a 38-yard run, NewCath was able to run out the clock on its final possession.
Holy Cross finished with had 319 total yards (178 passing, 141 rushing). Walker picked up 95 rushing yards on nine carries for the Indians.HOLY CROSS 7-0-0-14–21
at NEWCATH 7-14-10-7–38
HC–Smith 1 run (Norris kick)
NC–Kelly 1 run (Miller kick)
NC–Doyle 39 pass from Hightchew (Miller kick)
NC–Kelly 2 run (Miller kick)
NC–Kelly 8 run (Miller kick)
NC–Miller 20 FG
NC–Jasper 15 pass from Walker (Norris kick)
NC–Kelly 3 run (Miller kick)
HC–Walker 38 run (Norris kick)
RECORDS: NewCath 3-5, 2-0 Class 2A; Holy Cross 3-4, 0-1
