Sat Feb 11 2012
To be the best you have to beat the best.
That cliché comes to life for the Western Hills football team Friday, when it faces two-time defending state champion Central in the second round of the Class 3A state playoffs.
Kickoff is 7:30 p.m. at Central in Louisville.
“I think the kids are ready,” WHHS coach Don Miller said. “At this point of the year you’re going to play someone good no matter what. We just got the best of the best.”
Central comes into the game with a 6-5 record, but that’s misleading. The Yellowjackets played six Class 6A schools, going 1-5 against the likes of Henry Clay, St. Xavier, Male and Manual.
“They’re good,” Miller said. “You can’t look at their record, you have to look at who they played early in the season. We did show the team film from Spencer County in the first round (of the playoffs), and Central was up 43-36 going into the fourth quarter.”
Central went on to defeat Spencer 56-36 last week while WHHS (8-3) beat Shawnee 34-22.
Shawnee and Spencer are the two opponents Western Hills and Central have in common this year. Central won over Shawnee 22-12, and WHHS stopped Spencer 28-21.
“We’ve watched film,” WHHS junior Jacob Sharp said. “We’ve seen them play Spencer County and Shawnee, and we broke the film down. We’re not intimidated.
“I’m more excited than anything else,” he added about Friday’s game. “We know how good Central has been in the past, and we’re ready for the challenge more than anything.”
The Yellowjackets’ Anthony Wales, a sophomore running back, has rushed for 1,391 yards and 20 touchdowns this season, and senior quarterback Chris King has passed for 886 yards and 10 touchdowns while rushing for 456 yards and six touchdowns.
To get ready for Central, the Wolverines got an early start this week.
“We came in Sunday and looked at film,” Miller said. “They’re really concentrating hard. They even took a quiz on everything Central does so they could understand what they’re going to do.
“The coaching staff can only do so much,” he added, “and we have to make them understand. I think they have a good grasp of it. We have to make our fits, but by Thursday things should be looking pretty good.
“I think they’ll step up and give their best effort,” Miller said of his team.
This is the farthest the Wolverines have ever been in the playoffs, and they take a school-record eight victories into the game.
“The coaches tell us we’re writing history,” Sharp said, “and we want to keep on going.”
Even if a lot of their classmates don’t think that will happen.
“They think we’re going to get beat,” junior Bobby Clay said about the WHHS student body. “We just tell them we’ll see when game time comes.”
But the Wolverines know a victory won’t be easy.
“Coach (Ty) Scroggins knows what he’s doing,” Miller said of Central’s coach. “He puts it in the hands of his best players.
“All you can ask of the kids is to be in the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter,” he added, “and hopefully we can finish it off.”
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