LANCASTER — With the Garrard County football team in need of a late-game hero Friday night, Jacob Foley stepped forward.
Foley stepped up from the backfield, took the handoff from quarterback Connor Isaccs and ran 9 yards into the end zone with just two minutes, 32 seconds left in the game, giving the Golden Lions a 14-7 win over visiting Lincoln County at Dyehouse Stadium.
The senior running back, who had 294 yards the first week of the season against Shelby County but only 52 in week two against Madison Southern, was back above 200 against Lincoln, leading the Garrard rush with 205 yards on 18 carries.
Lincoln coach Travis Leffew was impressed with Foley’s play.
“He’s a tremendous, tremendous running back,” he said. “He does a great job of running the ball extremely hard. He’s a big impact for their team and he really ran hard at us tonight.”
Garrard coach Jerry Perry knows just how impactful Foley can be.
“Jacob is a good player and does a great job,” Perry said. “This was his week. He ran the ball well. And he knows every game is going to be different. One game he’s going to be the guy, next game Devan Logan will be the guy. He’s featured, but not every game. It depends on what the defense is offering. He realizes next week that he might get 30 yards, but he still plays big for us.”
The Golden Lions amassed 385 yards total offense and the Patriots finished with 294 yards.
Foley’s decisive touchdown, his second of the night, put an end to 34:46 of scoreless football. The Garrard senior scored his first TD with 4:21 left in the first quarter off a 25-yard run to give the Golden Lions a 6-0 lead. Just three minutes later, though, Lincoln was in the end zone with Tanner McAninch breaking through the Garrard defense and going 50 yards to the goal line to tie the game. Emma Kaiser booted the point after kick to edge the Patriots on top 7-6.
Josh Warren, who ran for 112 yards on 13 carries, help set up Foley’s first touchdown with first-down runs of 25 yards and 22 yards. The first-quarter Garrard and Lincoln scoring drives both covered 80 yards in six plays. McAninch, who led the Lincoln offense with 151 yards on 25 carries and was 6-for-14 passing for 59 yards, hit Sawyer Carrier for a first-down pass to the 40 then Tra Carey, who finished with 84 yards on 16 carries, advanced the ball to midfield to set up McAninch’s TD.
Then nothing until Foley’s fourth quarter score.
The Patriots (0-3) were forced to punt on five of their six remaining possessions in the game while the Golden Lions (2-1) turned the ball over on an interception and three times on downs before Foley tallied the final touchdown.
“We felt good. “We were able to move the ball, but we just couldn’t get the ball in,” Leffew said. “The kids played hard. They came out and they played hard and gave everything they had. We had ourselves in position to win.”
The Patriots threatened to score on the game’s opening possession, driving down to the Golden Lions’ 14-yard line. But Lincoln came away empty-handed when Kaiser’s 31-yard field goal attempt went wide.
Garrard drove down to the Lincoln 7, 9 and 15 yard lines only to be stopped on fourth down, and even had two touchdowns called back. Foley had a 5-yard score nullified and Warren had an 11-yard score called back, both on holding penalties in the third quarter.
“I thought both defenses struggled tonight,” Perry said. “Both teams moved up and down the field, but neither one could score. They left points on the field. We left points on the field. All kinds of points were left on the field. Defensively, if we don’t get a whole lot better, we’re in trouble.”
Penalties factored heavily in both teams’ play, with Lincoln whistled for eight penalties for 99 yards and Garrard getting penalized 13 times for 92 yards.
“We have done something that we haven’t shown all year long and that’s penalties,” said Leffew. “Some of our players let their egos get to them too much against a Garrard County rival team. That tends to happen in games like this. We had a bunch of penalties that backed us up as we were going down the field. That’s just a big stopper.”
While penalties did hinder the Lincoln offense, they also helped to move along a late drive. After Foley’s go-ahead TD, the Patriots began marching from their own 27 looking to retake the lead. They were near midfield as the clock fell under a minute to go when Garrard was called for pass interference on a Noah Horton pass attempt to Carrier. The penalty put Lincoln on the Garrard 40. Then the Golden Lions were called for a late hit after a McAninch run to get the ball inside the 20.
However, time eventually ran out for the Patriots on the final drive leaving the Golden Lions to celebrate the win.
“Lincoln hasn’t won a game but they play extremely hard and I think now they know what they want to do offensively,” said Perry. “They’ve been searching for weeks. It’s so weird cause it kind of happened to us last year with them as well because their quarterback got hurt, like on running a touchdown, and the very next week they were in a different offense. Tonight, they run a set. We’ve not seen it and we’re trying to adjust on the fly. It was like last year with several things that happened we never had seen and we were adjusting on the fly. My hat’s off to them. They played extremely well.”
Lincoln may have found an offense that clicks, but Leffew says the defense still needs work.
“We felt good because of some of the big defensive stops that we had tonight, but we did give up some big plays and that’s what killed us tonight,” he said. “So defensively we’ve got to look at that. Some of our alignment stuff was not correct in the first half so that hurt us early, too. We had worked and prepared on it all week so the guys knew but, like I said, in a rivalry game there’s so much hype so much stuff going on and the egos are high. We’ve just got to learn from it. We’ve got a great Casey County team coming in next week so we’ve got to go from here and prepare for them.”

at Garrard Co.
1 2 3 4 Final
Lincoln Co. 7 0 0 0 – 7
Garrard Co. 6 0 0 8 – 14

1st Quarter
Garrard: 4:21 – Jacob Foley 25-yard run (kick failed).
Lincoln: 1:18 – Tanner McAninch 50-yard run (Emma Kaiser kick).
4th Quarter
Garrard: 2:32 – Foley 9-yard run (Jarreth Davis pass from Connor Isaccs).

Game Stats
LC GC
First Downs 15 14
Rushing 11 11
Passing 2 2
Penalty 2 1
Rushing Plays 41 40 yards gained 235 355
Pass Attempts 15 8 completions 6 2 yards 59 30 touchdowns 0 0
interceptions 0 1
Total Plays 56 48 total offense 294 385
Fumbles/lost 2/0 1/0
Penalties/yards 8/99 13/92

Individual Statistics
Rushing
Lincoln
Tanner McAninch: 25 carries, 151 yards, TD.
Tra Carey: 16 carries, 84 yards.
Garrard
Jacob Foley: 18 carries, 205 yards, 2TDs.
Josh Warren: 13 carries, 112 yards.
Devan Logan: 5 carries, 22 yards.
Connor Isaccs: 4 carries, 16 yards.

Passing/Receiving
Lincoln
Passing: Tanner McAninch –6-14-0, 59 yards; Noah Horton – 0-1-0.
Receiving: Sawyer Carrier – 3-25; Noah Horton – 1-21; Carlos Nunez – 2-13.
Garrard
Passing: Connor Isaccs –2-8-1, 30 yards.
Receiving: Jarreth Davis – 1-15; Josh Warren – 1-15.