Perry Central takes on Whitley in Manchester
HAZARD – September 5, 2019 – Nathan Lyttle – BSN Perry Central Football Columnist
After a loss to Leslie County to open the season and an
open Friday last week, the Perry County Central Commodores are hungry for a
win.
This week, the Commodore crew heads to Clay County’s
Appalachian Bowl to take on the Whitley County Colonels. The Dores are familiar
with Whitley County as a former district opponent, but this year the game takes
place as an early-season bowl game.
“We had an excellent week of practice last week
and went to work on fixing some mistakes,” Commodore Coach Ovie Canady
told Bluegrass Sports Nation. “We worked on Whitley but spent a lot of
time working on our own problems.”
Commodore senior Jared Sizemore says the team is
looking forward to moving past the mistakes made against the Eagles.
“We had a rough game against Leslie County,”
Sizemore said. “We didn’t really play our best. I’m looking forward to
playing Whitley.”
The Colonels have been a tall task over the years for
the Commodores. Perry Central is 3-9 against Whitley County all-time. The wins
came in 2011, 2013 and 2018. The 2011 game ended with the Commodores stopping
Whitley’s Boston Bryant on a two-point conversion attempt that would have won
the game. The Dores blew out a one-win Colonels team in 2013. In 2018, the
Commodores beat Whitley County on the road for the first time. The Commodores
have a chance to defeat Whitley in back-to-back years for the first time ever.
Whitley County is 1-1 on the season, with a loss to
Corbin and a win over Huntsville, Tennessee’s Scott High School. They have
shown the ability to mix things up the first couple weeks. Against Corbin, the
Colonels through the ball 18 times and ran the ball 34 times. Against Scott,
they passed the ball 32 times and ran it 33 times. Quarterback Seth Mills has
three touchdowns and 287 passing yards on the season so far.
“We will have to contain and pressure the
QB,” Coach Canady said.
“We will have to find a way to keep their offense
off the field. For us, that means moving the ball and running more clock than
we did in the first game.”
The Commodores and Colonels clash this Friday at Clay
County High School. Kickoff is set for 6:00 p.m. with Clay County taking on Mason
County afterward in the nightcap of the Appalachian Bowl. Look for coverage of
the game on bluegrasssportsnation.com and the Bluegrass Sports Nation Facebook
page. You can listen to the game live online or on the radio on the East
Kentucky Sports Network.
