Friday night, fans crowded into St. Xavier’s Brother Thomas Moore Stadium to watch the next chapter to the long standing rivalry between the Tigers and the Bowling Green Purples, despite having defeated St. X two years in a row prior to this year’s contest between the state wide foes, St. X were predicted to take out the substantially smaller Bowling Green High School.
However, any time any rhythm seemed to be generated from the Catholic power house it was abruptly interrupted by Bowling Green, and as such the first half was almost entirely in favor of the Purples much to the surprise of the many Tiger fans in attendance.
In fact, going into half time St. X was down by seventeen, something that was to say the least foreign to them. This came after the Purples explosive first half which put them up 20-3.
For St. X this was certainly out of the ordinary in the team’s first two games they dominated both Ballard and Lexington Catholic, meanwhile Bowling Green had also defeated Lexington Catholic in their season opener, August 24th.
The second half opened with the sounds of Eye of the Tiger as St. X took the field with a new determination to get out of the hole from the first half, and that determination led St. X to a touchdown of their own in the third. That touchdown was answered though by the Purples, who were unable to connect with a two-point conversion.
This meant going into the fourth the game was still Bowling Green’s, as the Purples led 26-9. St. X head coach, Wil Wolford not losing his cool responded by motivating his team to narrow the lead scoring fifteen points, not to be outdone Bowling Green coach Kevin Wallace kept the Purples going with an additional thirteen points.
As the final buzzer sounded Bowling Green had claimed a victory at St. X- 39-25, and at the end of the day this game seemed to be decided by the speed of BGHS, and the ability of several of their runners (who have already made agreements with several colleges) to break tackles and get out in front of defenders, also it should be mentioned that currently state wide Bowling Green is ranked number one in their division.
The Purples will faces off at home against Owensboro Friday while St. X meets Fairdale at home that same time, currently St. X is ranked fifth state wide in their division.
Image by D. Rose
