Mayfield Defense rules Tilghman

From Joey Fosko of the Paducah Sun:  http://paducahsun.com/bookmark/15315480-Mayfield-defense-rules-Tilghman

A Decade of Glory: Mayfield’s decade of dominance

WPSD put out a nice video about us:

http://www.wpsdlocal6.com/sports/A-Decade-of-Glory-Mayfields-decade-of-dominance-127984308.html

KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL PREVIEW

Nice little writeup on Kentucky High School Football across the state, they actually put Mayfield at #1!!

http://sportsxpress.xanga.com/753945405/kentucky-high-school-football-preview/

West Kentucky 14, Southern Illinois 12

Mayfield has a top sophomore prospect

by Jody Demling

There’s a ton of talent across the state of Kentucky in the sophomore class.

Perhaps the best prospect in the western portion of the state is Mayfield High School linebacker/running back Johnathan Jackson.

The 6-foot, 195-pound Jackson is already hearing from Kentucky, East Carolina and Oregon among several other schools.

“He’s a leader and as a sophomore that doesn’t happen very often,” Mayfield coach said. “We’ve had a lot of good players over the years at Mayfield. He’s up there at the tops, if not the top.”

Jackson ran for 71 yards and two touchdowns and had 8.5 tackles, including two sacks to help Mayfield to a 47-6 victory over Hazard recently in the Class A state title game.

On the season, Jackson led the Cardinals in tackles and rushed for 1,356 yards and 17 TDs.

While he excels on both sides of the ball, Jackson said he “likes defense better” and projects at the Division I level as a linebacker.

Jackson said all the attention keeps him grounded.

“It’s a lot of pressure,” Jackson said of the college attention. “I know I have to keep my head up always. You never know who is watching.”

Mayfield 38, Beechwood 14

By Matt Mulcahey
Enquirer contributor

Football is often a game of inches, tiny increments that can determine victory and defeat. But sometimes it’s instead the enormous swings that define a game – seismic shifts in momentum that tilt a contest one way or the other.

On Friday, it was those enormous swings that doomed Beechwood as it fell at home in the Class A state semifinals, 38-14, to unbeaten Mayfield for the second consecutive year.

The Tigers (10-4) have advanced to the semifinal round seven of the last nine years, including state championship runs in 2004, 2007 and 2008. Those achievements did little to lessen the sting of Beechwood’s playoff exit for coach Noel Rash.

“Our expectations are state titles. That’s exactly what this senior class expected,” Rash said. “We just came up short. We’ve got to get back to the drawing board and find a way to beat (Mayfield) and that’s not going to be an easy task.”

The first of the game’s enormous swings came on the opening possession when Beechwood running back Cameron Vocke fumbled after the Tigers had driven all the way down to Mayfield’s 28-yard line. The Cardinals took full advantage, marching 78 yards in the opposite direction capped by a 57-yard touchdown pass from senior quarterback Luke Guhy to Javarius Richardson.

The next swing came late in the second quarter after a 28-yard Tiger touchdown pass from Michael Colosimo to Corey Cruse cut Beechwood’s deficit to14-7 with two minutes left to play in the half. That was more than enough for the Cardinals, who needed only 80 seconds to advance down the field and score to take a 21-7 halftime lead.

“(That touchdown) gave us some breathing room and got our guys pumped up in the locker room,” Mayfield coach Joe Morris said.

The Cardinals’ touchdown before the break forced the run-first Tigers to take to the air. Colosimo, who averages 14 pass attempts per game, threw 30 times on Friday. Mayfield’s lead also effectively took Vocke out of the game. The junior halfback entered the contest with 1,841 yards and 32 touchdowns. He managed only 47 yards on 10 carries versus the Cardinals – all of them in the first half.

The final swing in momentum arrived late in the third quarter. A 9-yard touchdown pass from Colosimo to Cruz pulled the Tigers to within 24-14. On the ensuing kickoff Mayfield senior Devin Jones muffed the return, but managed to scoop up his fumble at his own 1-yard line and bolt 99 yards for a touchdown.

“That kickoff return was the dagger. We got a little momentum swing and then they just stuck it too us,” Rash said. “It was a few things here and there, but that’s what (games) always come (down) to You’ve got to make breaks for yourselves and we didn’t.”

Joey Fosko’s Breakdown of A and AA playoffs.

The Paducah Sun’s Joey Fosko makes his weekly visit to the Travis Turner Sports Show, and Joe opens up discussing Mayfield’s clinical destruction of Caldwell County, a win that lifted the #1 Cardinals to a 10-0 mark in 2010.  The high-flying Redbirds enter the Class A playoffs as a state title contender, and Joe says Mayfield will roll through their playoff opener with Caverna.  He says Bethlehem could give Crittenden County a bit of a push, but likes the Rockets to move on to round two.  Joe highlights Ballard Memorial’s trip to Kentucky Country Day as one of the first round’s best matchups, and he thinks the Bombers have a great chance to win a playoff opener on the road for the third straight year.  Fulton County’s trip to Louisville will find them a heavy underdog to Holy Cross.  Joe also talks about Murray’s rise to #1 in 2A, and he pays tribute to the Tigers second straight perfect regular season.  He makes the Tigers a big favorite over Todd County Central, and he says Hancock County at Caldwell County could be a terrific battle.  Joe favors Fort Campbell over Trigg County at the post, and he says that Reidland’s exposure to postseason play will be a positive, but that the ‘Hounds season should end at Owensboro Catholic.

Here is the audio link of Joey Fosko’s breakdown of the A and AA playoffs:  http://www.froggylandsports.com/radioshows/jfosko11-2-10%20(1).mp3

Beechwood vs. Newport Central Catholic 10-30-2010

Here is the video to the Beechwood vs. Newport Central Catholic game that went into double overtime. Thought you fans would like see this: Beechwood vs. Newport Central Catholic

2010 Mayfield High School Football Schedule

Coach Leahy: A Large Part of the Tradition

Eighteen-year-old Paul Francis Leahy of Rock Island, Illinois, heard about the Mayfield-Paducah Tilghman grid grudge match when he migrated south to Murray State University on a football scholarship.

“My teammates from Mayfield talked about it,” said Leahy, who helped anchor Murray’s defense as a 6-3, 240-pound tackle.  “So did our other players from Kentucky.  It was unbelievable.”  The Land of Lincoln ex-patriot was later hired as a Mayfield assistant coach in 1971 and notched his first Tilghman game from the sidelines.

“The first Tilghman games I attended as a new coach just astounded me,” said Leahy.  “People would pour into the stadium.  Our kids got to play in front of ten or twelve thousand people.  Most high school football players never have the opportunity to perform in front of a crowd that size.”

Leahy, who won a Kentucky class AA championship his first year as head coach, conceded that the “Big Red-Big-Blue” rivalry means nothing to either team’s quest for another state title.  But it’s anything but by-the-numbers when the Cardinals and the Blue Tornado clash.  It’s a football feud.

“I soon realized that people felt that the integrity of the whole community was on the line every year in the Tilghman game,” he said.  “There’s an intensity in this contest that goes back more than eighty years.  Some people would rather beat Tilghman than win a state championship.”

The Mayfield-Paducah game has grabbed more than local newspaper headlines.  The 1987 battle for town bragging rights merited a cover story in the Louisville Courier-Journal magazine.  A cable TV sports network broadcasted that game nationally as a Friday night high school football feature.  “It’s the kind of traditional rivalry that really captures the imaginations of fans and even of people who don’t know that much about the game,” Leahy said.

For years, Mayfield squared off against Tilghman as a season-ender on Thanksgiving afternoon.  The game was moved up in the schedule after Kentucky reorganized prep football into classes based on school size.  Larger, Tilghman ended up in Class AAA.  Mayfield was in Class AA for years and finally wound up in class A.

“It’s hard to explain exactly why the Tilghman game is still so important to the kids and to the community,” Leahy said, “I think part of the appeal to the players is that innate love of approval we all have.  Who wouldn’t enjoy having a whole town cheering his efforts?”

Mayfield no longer has an official football homecoming.  But Leahy said that the Tilghman game is the closest thing to it.  “Even people who don’t live in Mayfield any more often come home for the game.  We’ve had them send telegrams to the Tilghman pep rally apologizing for missing the game.”

Tilghman games are not found in the little-noted but rather in the long-remembered category of high school recollections.  “Fans, a lot of them former players themselves, can tell you plays and scores from games decades ago; and those memories make our players want to win even more,” Leahy said.  These games have become the traditions of Mayfield High School football in their own special way to hundreds of fans, players, and alumni.  Leahy added, “We remind our players that every Tilghman game gets ‘replayed’ over and over again in conversation.  They want their performance on game night to be good because they’ll be hearing about the way they played until their dying day.  A Tilghman game is never over.”

For 22 years, Leahy was an assistant to Coach Jack Morris, whose Redbird teams notched four state championships.  Off the field, Leahy taught geography.  “It didn’t take me long to realize that I had landed in a rare and unique teaching and coaching situation.”

“Football is important to me, but academics are even more so,” Leahy said.  He stresses that, “Even though I spend hours coaching, I spend even more time teaching,” Leahy said.  Leahy seems to combine the best of both professions with ease.  He attributes this type of success to every member of this community.  “We’ve always had outstanding students, a terrific administration, community support, and parents with high expectations for academic success.  When teaching is enjoyable and you’re winning ballgames, you’d have to be a nut to pack up and leave.”

Leahy, who became head coach after Jack Morris retired in 1993, admits he’s received his share of head coaching job offers elsewhere.  Many have been at larger schools with winning football traditions like Mayfield’s.  “It would take one heck of an opportunity to lure a guy away from a place he’s lucky to be,” Leahy said.  “Most head coaching jobs would be a step down from an assistant coach at Mayfield.  This is a team on which kids consistently play above their ability levels.  I think those performances over the years come from tradition.”

Tradition, he added, means Mayfield football is larger than any one person, even a coach with a state championship ring on his finger.  “Even bigger than me,” laughed Leahy, who claims he doesn’t need padding when he plays Santa Claus at Christmas.  Leahy feels that the tradition of excellence, both on and off the field, will always be passed on.  “If I keeled over tomorrow, the coaching staff would carry right on.  With Louis McDonald and Joe David Smith, I was part of a very good assistant staff; and I’ve got an outstanding group working now.  They’re dedicated and knowledgeable, and they have a strong sense of the MHS tradition.”

Campus support for Cardinal football ranges beyond the coaches’ offices, Leahy said.  “Look around the school at the students and faculty.  Our kids are great, and our faculty members are unbelievably supportive and enthusiastic.  For the Tilghman game, they’re wearing red and black and cheering, even the ones who don’t know a football froma pineapple.”