Ashland will try and become the 13th team in Tomcat history to have an undefeated regular season Friday night when it visits Lexington Catholic.
Ashland secured the Class 4A district championship with a 48-28 victory over Johnson Central on Friday night. With a win this week, they would become only the fourth Tomcat team since 1942 to be unbeaten in the regular season. The others came in 1958, 1975 and 2020. Both the 1967 and 1990 state championship teams suffered their only loss during the regular season.
The KHSAA playoff system did not start until 1959. The Tomcats claimed mythical championships through the years prior to the playoff system. The 1931 team that went 10-0 clobbered Decatur, Ga., 80-6 at Armco Field in a game that was set up late to determine the top team in Dixie. Five decades later, in 1981, a news service poll that was checking up on national rankings declared the Tomcats as the best team in the country in 1931.
Ashland’s last undefeated team came in the COVID-shortened 2020 season. The Tomcats finished 11-0. They were 6-0 in the regular season with several games cancelled because of COVID and then ran the table in the postseason to perfection.
These Tomcats have secured the opportunity to play more home games when the postseason begins a week from Friday. Ashland goes into the last regular-season game with the top RPI ranking in Class 4A. They need to win Friday to keep that standing and then would still have to potentially (likely?) battle through the northern Kentucky gauntlet of Covington Catholic and Fort Thomas Highlands before the RPI seeding takes real effect.
Covington Catholic wasn’t in the top 10 of the RPI but make no mistake, the Colonels are good but they have an interesting first round game with Johnson Central, the most dangerous 3-7 team in Kentucky.
I saw Covington Catholic in person throttle Class 6A Ryle in the opening game of the season. And Highlands is Highlands, the district champion and one of the favorites to win Class 4A.
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting with Ashland’s coaches and players to present them with my new book and that day I asked them: How do you want to be remembered? They have the chance to etch their name in rare air with a win on Friday night. An unbeaten regular season makes you memorable.
Below are the years that Ashland had a perfect regular season, Eight of those seasons came between 1926-1935 including six in a row from 1926-1931. They had a 60-0-4 streak ended on a last-second play against Erie, Pennsylvania, at Armco Field in 1932.
Here are the dozen Tomcat teams that had an undefeated regular season.
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1933
1935
1942
1958
1975
2020
