Wildcats Close Out Season With Win On Senior Night

Darren Doyle, story and photos
The Edmonson County Wildcat Football team closed out the 2016 last night at Wildcat Stadium with a 39-20 win over Barren County in front of a great crowd as eight seniors played their last football game as Wildcats.

The Wildcats scored first on an 84-yard touchdown run by senior Daniel Caudill in the second quarter and the extra point by Brett Brannon gave them an early 7-0 lead. Barren County answered with a 50-yard touchdown reception and a two-point conversion, taking an 8-7 lead. 

It was Caudill again with a touchdown run but Barren County blocked the extra point attempt and EC led 13-8 going into the half.

Barren took their first lead in the third quarter on an interception and touchdown but missed the extra point as they led 14-13.

Caudill wasn't finished as he would score two more touchdowns in the third and the Wildcats took at 27-14 lead going into the fourth quarter.

Senior Rheece Berkley got in on the action when he made a great catch in the end zone for his first touchdown of the night, giving EC a 33-14 lead with just under nine minutes to go.

Daniel Caudill scored his final touchdown as an Edmonson County Wildcat with under three minutes left as Edmonson County led 33-14. Barren would score again, but it wouldn't be enough as the Wildcats went on to win 39-20.

Coach Nathan Smith reflected back on the 2016 season.

"There's a great group of people I'm around that have helped me a ton," he said. "We've got great boosters, they've helped so much. This group of seniors we have, I couldn't have been more blessed to have any better group of kids around me. The whole group of kids that we have right now, we did not have one discipline problem throughout the entire season. Not one problem since I got the job back at Christmas. When you have a group of 50 high school boys, you're thinking that one of them is going to mess up every now and then, but these are just great kids. I inherited a great football team and everybody in this community should be really proud of them. The season didn't turn out as good as we wanted, we're 4-6 on the year. We lost 5 of those by one touchdown. We were banged up all year long...but we have a great group of kids and hopefully this win right here will help us into the off-season. Not many teams get to end their season on a win. It was a learning curve for me and our coaches, but we're going to work at it, we're going to get better, we're going to keep our hands in the dirt, that's all we can do."

Senior Daniel Caudill finished the season with a total of 31 touchdowns this season for the Wildcats. He was ranked number one in the state in total points scored.

The Wildcat seniors were Rheece Berkley, Hunter Garrett, Daniel Caudill, Jordan Ainsworth, Jack Rich, Dylan Waldrop, Sawyer Spainhoward, and Jarred Coy.