Franklin County quarterback Jeremy Gardner (3) tries to get away from Western Hills' Cody Hecker Friday night. WHHS won 43-14. (State Journal/Chase Sewell)

Rain, a cross-town rival – there were several obstacles for Western Hills’ football team to overcome Friday night.
But the Wolverines were on a mission.

“There were three main things,” WHHS senior quarterback Dylan Curry said after Western Hills defeated Franklin County 43-14 Friday at WHHS.

“One, it’s County, and that’s always a heated rivalry,” Curry said. “Second, it’s senior night, and it’s the last time the seniors will play at home in the regular season, and probably the biggest thing is we were playing for the best record in school history.

“Those were the three most important things tonight.”

With the win the Wolverines finished the regular season at 7-3, the best record in school history, and they also captured the city championship, having beaten Frankfort 14-13 in September.

The game was the final one of the season for the Flyers.

“We knew they would play tough tonight,” WHHS coach Don Miller said, “It was kind of their Super Bowl, and it went back and forth a couple times.”

It appeared to be more of the same when the Wolverines were forced into a three-and-out situation for the second straight time late in the first quarter.

Curry was lined up to punt the ball, but the snap went over his head. As he picked up the ball and started scrambling, coaches on the sideline were yelling “punt.”

Instead Curry rolled out, saw Cody Hecker near midfield, and threw a pass. Hecker hauled in the pass and did the rest, taking the ball into the end zone for a 72-yard touchdown pass play.

That broke the scoreless tie, and when Curry hit Chris Pugh with a pass for the two-point conversion the Wolverines were ahead 8-0 with 2:15 left in the first quarter.

“It was just a bad snap over my head,” Curry said. “I was going to punt. I was trying to run to the outside and get in the grass and punt, but then I saw Cody Hecker roll out. I trust his hands, and I knew he’d make a play.”

The score was 8-0 at the end of the first quarter, and the Wolverines went ahead 14-0 early in the second when Curry ran 55 yards for a touchdown with 9:41 left in the period.

The conversion pass was incomplete, leaving the score at 14-0.

WHHS caught a break at the end of the first half when Franklin County lost the ball on a fumble at its own 12-yard line with four seconds on the clock.

The Wolverines called timeout, then ran a play where Curry went 12 yards for the touchdown with 7/10ths of a second remaining. The point-after kick failed, and WHHS led 20-0 at halftime.

“That was a big momentum boost, that we got to score right before halftime,” Curry said. “There were only four seconds so we weren’t going to get another play, but I had some good blocking and got it in there.”

“That kind of opened it up,” Miller said about the touchdown. “We called a timeout right there. We’d been working on some things. We thought they might have added a wrinkle here and there, and we knew they’d be sound defensively. We’d worked on that play this week, and it went really well.”

WHHS scored twice in the third quarter before the Flyers got on the board.

Curry connected on a 19-yard touchdown pass to Pugh, who made a diving catch in the end zone for the score with 10:52 left in the third. Curry completed the conversion pass to Hecker to make the score 28-0, and Curry had a 1-yard touchdown run and ran for the conversion with 6:18 remaining to give the Wolverines a 36-0 lead.

With three seconds left in third quarter, FCHS quarterback Jeremy Gardner hit Ryan Timmons on a slant pass that went 65

“It seems we kind of laid back a little bit,” Miller said. “In the second half Gardner hit a couple slants that they took to the house. We have to do a better job in our secondary on that play. We fell asleep a little bit.”

With 7:38 left in the game, WHHS’ Justin Wright scored from a yard out and Logan Curry kicked the extra point to make the score 43-6.

Gardner’s second touchdown pass to Timmons came with 4:28 remaining, and Aaron Lackey ran for the conversion to make the final score 43-14.

“We started slow,” Dylan Curry said. “They’re a good team, they’re just young, but we knew they’d be tough. We got our offense rolling, and our defense held them except for those two passes. It’s one of our best games of the season from top to bottom.”

The Flyers end their season at 1-9.

“It was their experience and our lack of it, and it showed tonight,” FCHS coach Aaron Stepp said. “They big-played us. They had the punt that ended up being a touchdown, and they recovered a couple of fumbles.

“We’re a young team,” he added. “I know people are probably tired of hearing me say that, but it is what it is. Western Hills has a good team. Coach Miller does a good job, and my hat’s off to them.”

Up next for Western Hills is a first-round playoff game Friday at home against Elizabethtown.