Friday, September 29, 2000
Confident CovCath ready for challenge
Top-ranked Highlands supplies opponent for 1-4 Colonels
By Ray Schaefer
Enquirer contributor
Covington Catholic might be the most confident 1-4 football team in Kentucky. CovCath travels today to Fort Thomas to meet archrival and top-rankedHighlands in a Class AAA district game. Listen to CovCath's players and coaches, however, and for a moment you think the Colonels are 4-1.
“Once district starts, it's a whole other season,” senior defensive back Alex Fedders said. “We just have to win the majority of our games.”
It's a good thing CovCath is feeling so confident, because the last two seasons have been mostly miserable:
The Colonels were 4-7 in 1999 and have won just three of their last 14 games dating to last season.
CovCath has been outscored 136-52 this season, and Beechwood shut them out 14-0 two weeks ago.
The offense has piled up 276.2 yards a game, but the defense has allowed 316 per contest - which is third worst in Northern Kentucky.
Coach Lynn Ray said his team plays well for a couple plays but not an entire series.
“I think our problem is, we've been playing decent defense, but we've made major mistakes, had major breakdowns, gave up big plays,” Ray said. “Offensively, we've been stopping ourselves with penalties and mistakes. They're all correctable mistakes.”
There are some good things to mention this season.
Junior linebacker Dave Paul is one. His 21 tackles against Beechwood set a school record.
“I had a lot of tackles, but I could've done better,” Paul said. “I could've filled in the (tackling) lanes harder.”
And Ray praised senior nose guard Jonathan Saalfeld.
“He's been real aggressive, making tackles, working hard, making people double-team him,” Ray said.
Then there's senior Cole Chadwick. As a tailback, he has only 266 rushing yards compared to more than 1,000 as a sophomore, but for the first time he is playing outside linebacker.
“I'm still in the evolving process,” Chadwick said. “Beginning of the season, (playing linebacker) was hard.”
Among all the negatives, Ray sees a couple more positives. He'll tell his team how CovCath won the state AAA title in 1994 after starting 1-4, and he'll mention the '97 regional final win in the mud at Highlands.
“One and four's not so bad, is it, if we win a state championship,” Ray said. “These games we just played really don't matter anything.”
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