[Stardust]

BOWLING GREEN — While Highlands head football coach Dale Mueller wasn’t on hand to make the latest declaration of a Highlands state football championship team being the, “best Highlands team ever,” the Bluebirds have now proven to be the best in state history over a six-year period.

Mueller missed the game to attend his mother-in-law’s funeral in Ithaca, N.Y., but the Bluebirds did just fine with their head coach on hand in spirit as they rolled to a state record sixth consecutive state championship and state record 22nd title overall with a 47-0 win over Collins in the Class 4A state championship game on Friday night at Feix Field/Houchens Stadium.

Highlands (14-1), which broke Boyle County’s record of five straight state titles set from 1999-2003, also won its 30th consecutive playoff game to break Boyle County’s record of 29 set from 1999-2004.

Defensive coordinator Brian Weinrich filled in for Mueller as interim head coach on Friday.

“He’s here,” said Weinrich. “What happened tonight is because of him. He built the program and the foundation is so solid. We just had to make sure we didn’t screw it up.”

The Bluebirds made it look easy actually as they scored on their first possession of the game, rolled out to a 33-0 halftime lead and reached the 45-point mercy rule that led to a running clock for the final 11:01 of the game. They outgained Collins 476-173, and the shutout was the first suffered by Collins in its three-year history as a school. Collins entered the game averaging 40.1 points and 393.3 yards per game and had defeated Warren East in the semifinal round last week, 58-7.

Mueller, who still gets credit for Friday’s win and has now won 11 state titles at Highlands, is the one who usually calls the offensive plays, but the Bluebirds, who entered the game averaging 52.4 points and 496.3 yards per game, didn’t miss a beat.

“Even though he’s not here calling the plays this is just a well-oiled machine of a coaching staff,” said senior quarterback Donovan McCoy, who completed 10 of 15 passes for 153 yards and two touchdowns, the first two scores of the game, and rushed for 105 yards and two touchdowns on 15 carries. “We can have our three top offensive coaches go down and we would have someone ready to go in and call the plays like he would and execute the game plan. That’s just how Highlands works.

“He was not here physically, but he’s definitely here spiritually and emotionally with us. This is his byproduct that when he’s not here he’s still in our minds. We play the way he would want us to play.”

Weinrich said he didn’t give an emotional pregame speech, because Mueller doesn’t give them either.

“We just wanted to act like everything was normal,” said junior running back Zach Harris, who rushed for 96 yards and two touchdowns on 14 carries and went over 1,000 yards rushing for the season on his final carry of the night, a five-yard run that left him with 1,001 yards for the season. “It was just another game for us. We just came out and did our job and that’s what Coach Mueller would have wanted us to do. It’s what he teaches us to do.”

Highlands was a balanced offensive team all season (it entered Friday’s game averaging 264.0 yards per game rushing and 232.3 yards per game passing, and it showcased that balance in the first half.

It used its passing game in the first quarter to take a 13-0 lead, then used its running game in the second quarter to outscore Collins 20-0 and build a 33-0 halftime lead.

McCoy completed 6 of 8 passes for 109 yards and two touchdowns in the first quarter, the first a 14-yarder to Ryan Greene two plays after completing a 13-yard pass to Luke Turner on a 4th-and-9 play from the Collins 33, and the second a 21-yard strike to Turner.

The Bluebirds amassed 172 rushing yards on 12 second-quarter carries and got touchdown runs of eight and three yards by Harris and 30 yards from senior Colin Seidl. Harris rushed for 76 yards on 10 carries in the first half, while Seidl rushed for 115 yards on six carries in the first half.

Highlands outgained Collins in the first half, 353-101.

Junior defensve end Seth Hope helped lead the defensive performance with five quarterback sacks for 63 yards in losses.

Both Weinrich and McCoy were asked to reflect on the program winning a sixth straight state championship, but both said no one in the program was thinking about it.

“We don’t ever talk about stuff like that whether it’s being 1-0 or 10-0 or even state championships,” said Weinrich. “It’s just about that rep in practice we have to get better with that rep or with weights we have to get better with weights. We don’t care who we play or where we play we just want to win. Maybe it helps keep us focused. The guys are fully bought into it. They’re brainwashed and it’s a great situation we’re in right now.”

Said McCoy: “It is pretty cool to look back and say we won six in a row, because no one has ever done that before, but that was not on our minds at all; it was just about getting prepared.”http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/201...ck_check=1