When the seniors on the Dayton High School football team were freshmen, they weren’t sure they would even be playing football during their final year of high school.
Not only are they playing, but they’re winning and winning frequently.
The seniors picked up one of the biggest wins of their careers by beating archrival Bellevue 44-7 Friday night at Dayton’s O.W. Davis Field.
Dayton improves to 4-3 and is now 13-14 in the third season of head coach Jesse Herbst. Bellevue is 1-6. It was the district opener for both teams in Class 1A, District 4.
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“It means a lot,” said Dayton senior lineman Eric Jimenez. “A couple of years back, we lost to Bellevue by quite a lot. Just to come out here and win the last two years, it’s a great feeling.”
Herbst, a longtime assistant at Simon Kenton, came to his alma mater, Dayton, after the 2018 season.
He directed the Greendevils to a 5-4 record last year, which was their first winning season since going 8-3 in 2007.
From 2008-18, the program went 16-101. In the 2018 season, the freshman year for the current seniors, the team forfeited two games because of a lack of numbers and finished 0-9.
Herbst worked on building the roster size immediately and began his first season 4-1.
Herbst started this season with 44 players and dressed 30 against Bellevue as the team has been battling injuries and COVID absence.
“My staff is mostly Dayton graduates and we played in high school together,” Herbst said. “We’re living the dream right now. How cool is it to come back and coach your high school? It’s unbelievable.”
Said senior Brian Lewis. “It means everything. Herbst came in here and put the program completely upside down. Without him, the program would still be what it was three years ago. Discipline, work ethic, he taught us all. It was everything.”
The work paid off against Bellevue, which has controlled the all-time series against Dayton, which began in 1926.
The two teams have played more games against each other than any duo in Kentucky. They met for the 147th time Friday night in front of a standing-room only crowd at Davis Field, which opened in 1911 when Wrigley Field and Fenway Park were still in the planning stages.
Fans watched from balconies overlooking the field and a group set off fireworks after each touchdown.
“We’re just trying to grow our program,” Herbst said. “Four years ago, we could barely field a team. We had to cancel our last two to three games. Our whole goal was to get kids out.”
Bellevue still leads the all-time series 98-46-3, but the Greendevils have now won two in a row for the first time since 2006-07
Dayton just missed recording its largest margin of victory in the series (43-0 in 1996) and having its highest point total in the series (46 in 1949).
“It was a big win for the team and the community,” Jimenez said. “They really wanted it and we made it happen. We just executed on every play. Our defense played outstanding, our offense played outstanding, and we put it all together and had a great night.”
Dayton did it by rushing for more than 350 yards in the contest.
Lewis and senior Preston Baggot rushed for roughly 150 yards apiece.
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