Benge, Devils ignore messy conditions to dominate Wildcats

FLATWOODS — On a day where the mist was steady and chilling throughout the area, the Russell Red Devils took advantage of the conditions and blew away the Bath County Wildcats in a 53-16 win on Friday night at Henry R. Evans Stadium.

Russell moves its record to 6-2 overall and 3-0 in district play, and can wrap up their third-straight district title on Friday when they travel to Grayson to face East Carter. Bath County falls to 1-7 on the season.

Red Devils coach TJ Maynard was glad about the convincing win, but stressed that this team was still a work in progress and looking to keep showing improvement.

"What we stressed all week was let's don't worry about everything around us. Let's do what we do correctly. Whether that's blocking the right guy, or taking things on with the right shoulder, we need to work on technique. And that's what we've been doing the past month, because we have some games coming up against East Carter and Breathitt that magnifies those mistakes."

Russell carried the momentum over from last weeks' win over Lewis County, as they continued to run the ball with great success by rolling up 388 rushing yards on the night.

The damp conditions did little to help Bath County's option offense as the Wildcats were held to just 165 yards on the ground and lost starting quarterback Parker Cox early in the first quarter.

Junior Kaiden Benge continued to spearhead the offensive attack, finishing with 9 carries for 229 yards and four touchdowns in the win. Benge also had a 48-yard touchdown reception on Russell's first play from scrimmage to put his team up 7-0.

Jordan Rowe, Lane Osborne, Trenton Duvendeck and Deakyn Dickens score the other rushing touchdowns for the Devils.

Then next three scores in the first half would come on the ground for Russell. Benge would score on a 1-yard play and then Osborne would score at the 8:21 mark of the second quarter to make it 20-0.

Russell would have to wait for their fourth score of the half, as Bath looked as through they would answer on their next possession, getting a huge 33-yard gainer from Branson Bartlett off an option pitch from Stephen Cade Carter to put the ball inside the Russell 10.

But the drive would die at the one yard line when ball came loose on a mishandled exchange from center and Jack Madden recovered the ball in the end zone with 3:14 before halftime.

From that point on, the Devils began to distance themselves from Bath.

Hunter Williams would help engineer an efficient two-minute drive for the Devils, completing a pair of passes to Shawn Deskins while Benge ripped off a pair of big runs.

Benge's final run would cover the final 20 yards as Benge went virtually untouched into the end zone. Rowe ran in a reverse for the two points to make it 28-0 at the break.

Rowe would score to open up the second half on a stretch play that went for 20 yards to extend the lead out to 34-0.

Benge's biggest play of the night came following an interception by Caden Hampton at Russell's own 1 yard line.

Benge took a snap from the Wildcat and found a crease to his right, shook off a tackler at the 6, stiff armed another at midfield and made a 99-yard house call to put the Devils ahead 41-0.

Maynard recalled the only other time he's had a player pull off a rare 99-yard run.

"It was Josh Porter when I was at Greenup, he was my quarterback, and it was against Sheldon Clark. We were just trying to get off the goal line and he took a sneak 99 yards," said Maynard. "It was same scenario, we tried to freeze them and them finally we snapped it to him and he got out of there and took it to the house."

Bath would finally break up the shutout on their next possession with a 32-yard touchdown pass by Carter to Maddox Lucas. Carter completed the two-point pass to Case Carter to make it 41-8.

Russell would add two more explosive touchdown runs, this time from their back ups.

Duvendeck would go to his left and slip outside to break free and truck a defender around the 15 yard line to notch a 44-yard score.

The final Devil touchdown would come on the final play from Dickens as he slipped out of several tacklers arms and took off 43 yards to round out the final score.

Bath County 0 0 8 8 = 16

Russell 13 15 13 12 = 53

First Quarter

Rus — Kaiden Benge 48 pass from Hunter Williams (Sam Totten kick), 7:31.

Rus — Kaiden Benge 1 run (kick no good), 1:02.

Second Quarter

Rus — Lane Osborne 3 run (Sam Totten kick), 8:21.

Rus — Kaiden Benge 20 run (Jordan Rowe run), 1:02.

Third Quarter

Rus — Jordan Rowe 13 run (kick no good), 4:16.

Rus — Kaiden Benge 99 run (Sam Totten kick), 1:02.

BC — Maddox Lucas 32 pass from Stephen Cade Carter (Carter pass to Case Carter), 6:55.

Fourth Quarter

Rus — Trenton Duvendeck 44 run (kick no good), 9:50.

BC — Ollie Snyder1 run (Elijah Jackson run), 6:55.

Rus — Deakyn Dickens 43 run, 0:00.

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BC Rus

First downs 10 14

Rushes-yards 34-165 22-388

Passing yards 32 85

Total yards 197 473

Cmp-Att-Int 1-3-1 5-7-0

Fumbles-lost 1-1 0-0

Penalties-yards 4-21.5 4-25

Punts-average 3-62 0-0.0

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Individual Leaders

RUSHING – Bath County: Branson Bartlett 4-46, Parker Cox 3-minus 10, Stephen Cade Carter 7-31, Ayden Vice 2-5, Braxton McPherson 10-32, Case Carter 2-7, Ollie Snyder 6-54 TD, ; Russell: Jordan Rowe 4-42 TD, Hunter Williams 1-minus 2, Deakyn Dickens 1-50 TD, Raylon Haight 2-10, Nicholas Marcum 1-4, Kaiden Benge 9-229 4-TD, Trenton Duvendeck 1-45 TD, Lane Osborne 3-10 TD.

PASSING – Bath County: Parker Cox 1-1-0 0, Stephen Cade Carter 1-2-1 32 TD; Russell: Hunter Williams 5-7-0 85 TD.

RECEIVING – Bath County: Branson Bartlett 1-0, Maddox Lewis 1-32 TD; Russell: Griffin Fisher 1-8, Shawn Deskins 2-22, Kaiden Benge 1-48 TD, Lane Osborne 1-7.

MISSED FIELD GOALS – None.