Nov. 14, 2012 — It may not have been the successful football seasons East and West Carter may have hoped for, but there can be a silver lining in the most unlikely places.
Monday afternoon, East Carter (2-8) and West Carter (0-10) put the thoughts of painful losses behind them as several players were honored for their on-the-field efforts.
Wrapping up the regular season with a big-time win over 10th-ranked Morgan County, Head Coach Zack Moore and the East Carter Raiders took home several awards, including two All EKC (Eastern Kentucky Conference) First-Team members, and junior forward Kyle Brown took home both the Wes Hopkins Courage Award.
For First Team All EKC, East Carter had Cade Stidham, a 600-yard rusher, and Cole Boggs make the squad.
Stidham and Boggs shared equal excitement about the honor.
“The season didn’t end up the way we had hoped, but it definitely feels good to be recognized for all the hard work we’ve put in,” Stidham said.
“Like Cade said, we weren’t happy the fact we only won two games, but it is nice to receive this honor,” Boggs said.
The Wes Hopkins Courage Award is given each year to honor players who have overcome some type of hardship to represent their program with pride.
East Carter’s Zack Cathey and Jacob Gray overcame difficult circumstances off-the-field to collectively take home this award. We will have a full feature on this inspirational story in next week’s Journal-Times.
The Raiders were not the only Carter County club to collect hardware Monday.
Though West Carter did not have one win this season, a lot of that could be contributed to the amount of youth filling the roster.
One of the Comets’ 26 underclassmen from the 2012 season, freshman quarterback Braden Brown, was the lone honoree wearing maroon and white, grabbing an All EKC First-Team trophy.
The soft-spoken Brown said he looks forward to the future of Comet football.
“We had a tough year, but we were a really young team this year,” Brown said. “As us young players get older, I really feel that we could have some pretty good teams.”
The East side of the county also had two players make All EKC Second-Team in Christian Kouns and Jordan Ratcliff.
The EKC is commissioned by Gary Kidwell and Assistant Commissioner Tim Carper.
Grant Stevens can be reached at gstevens@journal-times.com or by telephone at 1-800-247-6142.
