It was a bitter end to a promising season, as Central lost 14-13 to Lexington Catholic on Friday on a blocked field-goal attempt with 3.8 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
With players in tears leaving the field around him, Central coach Ty Scroggins reflected on a game that got away and a senior class that played its last game.
“Lexington Catholic kind of put it to us scheme-wise,” he said. “We thought we would be able to do a lot more things with their man coverage.”
Central outgained Lexington Catholic and forced four first-half turnovers in taking a 13-0 lead at halftime. But as the offense sputtered in the second half, a disciplined opponent waited its turn patiently and scored the 14 points necessary to take the lead. Central put itself in great position to win the game at the end. It just wasn’t meant to be.
“It doesn’t matter if we lost by 15 points or one point, we lost,” Scroggins said. “That’s football. These guys played their tails off for four years and we had a heck of a run this year. We just came up short tonight. We have to go in and console the 25 seniors. It’s tough because out of the 25, 24 of them played.”
With championships in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012, the Yellowjackets thought they had a good chance to add 2015 to that list.
“We’ve had a heck of a run for nine years,” Scroggins said. “It’s one of those things. We’ve been here nine times in the regional finals. We’ve come up short twice.
“We’re going to have to come back and rebuild. We’re going to be young next year. Some of the juniors who got some minutes are going to have to step up and fill in some big shoes. James Simpson will be the quarterback, he’ll be a senior. We just have to watch a little bit of film for our younger guys and our coaches, see where we made mistakes. We have to get in the weight room.”