Jayleigh Campbell was a busy teenager before she joined the football team in middle school. She’s played alto saxophone and soccer since she was in elementary school.

Campbell, now a senior at Christian County High School, would finish up her practices and then wait for her dad, who at the time was a coach for her middle school team, to finish up his practice. One day, some coaches made a suggestion.

“‘Why don’t you just kick a ball for fun, see what happens?’” Campbell said. “And I kicked it, made it, and they were like, ‘Do you want to be our new kicker?’ And I said, ‘Yeah!’ Because I always love a fun challenge, proving people wrong and just doing what I do best.”

As of last Friday, Campbell will be forever etched in the nascent history of the new Christian County Tigers, which formed this season by way of the consolidation of Hopkinsville High School and the old Christian County High School. She kicked a game-winning field goal from 25 yards as time expired to give the Tigers a 24-21 overtime win against McCracken County, securing the first home win and district win in the program’s history.

It was the first field goal she’d ever attempted in a varsity game. She was 8 of 11 on PAT attempts this season coming into the game (9 of 13 after) after going 9-for-11 last year for the former Christian County Colonels.

McCracken County, ranked No. 7 in Class 6A RPI and 5-3 entering this week, had the first possession in overtime. Jaylen Ray quickly ended the Mustangs’ turn on the first play — “a heck of an interception, a one-handed snag in the end zone,” said Tigers head coach Dustin Lopez — before Christian County reeled off three straight runs and faced a 4th-and-short. In hindsight, Lopez wishes he’d called the penultimate play to better manage the angle from which Campbell would attempt the kick.

“It was on that left hash, they called a timeout to try and ice her, but there was no hesitation from me,” Lopez said. “I was confident in her. The wind was kind of blowing in her face and she kicked it right down the middle. This is my 19th year as a coach and it was my first time I’ve had a walk-off field goal. It was big for us.”

The former Christian County High School won just one game in its final season. Hopkinsville, where Lopez had coached previously, finished 7-5 — one of the wins was 48-13 over their once in-town rival — and won a playoff game in its final campaign.

This blended iteration got off to a rough start: they turned the ball over four times in a 28-21 heartbreaker to Cooper (6-2), and faded 49-32 against Mayfield (7-1), both contenders in their respective classes. The Tigers (3-5) handled a top-40 program out of Tennessee, McKenzie, 47-28, and fellow 6A challenger Daviess County (1-7) before getting pummeled at South Warren (42-0) and at home by Frederick Douglass (35-7). They dropped another tight one, 37-33, to Henderson County (4-4) in their district opener coming off a bye week.

Toppling a team against which they were a big underdog — Christian County this week sits No. 17 in Class 6A RPI — would have been cause enough for jubilation. But to do it in the way the Tigers did?

“As soon as I kicked the ball and everything happened, everybody was celebrating,” Campbell said. “We sat around for so long after the game and were like, ‘Man, I can’t believe that happened,’ this and that, and just reminisced. And then I was like, ‘OK, I’ve got to go home and rest for tomorrow’s game.”

Yup, less than 16 hours after making the biggest kick of her football career, Campbell suited up in the 2nd Region tournament for the Tigers’ girls soccer team. They fell 4-0 at Henderson County, finishing 11-7 on the year.

The last result was undesirable, but it was a fun season that, for Campbell, eased the transition to a new school.

“In the beginning when people started talking about consolidating, we were in middle school, and I thought, ‘that’s never going to happen,’” Campbell said. “Then it started becoming more real while we were in high school and all the parents talking about it kind of made most of us scared.

“But then our first soccer practice after consolidation was awesome. That might be the most fun I’ve ever had in a sport in a long time. I think most of the athletes on our team would say that was the best team we’ve ever been on. Most of us knew each other in elementary school and had played in rec leagues and YMCA and stuff like that, and to come together for our senior years was really special.”

Now that soccer season’s over, Campbell can more easily attend football practice. It’ll still be tough for her to be around for most halftime speeches — Remember the alto sax? Yea, she plays in the marching band, too — but she’s as much a part of the team as any boy on it.

“She shows up and puts in as much work as anybody when she’s not at soccer,” Lopez said. “People look and see the long hair coming out of her helmet and go, ‘Hey man, you’ve got a girl that kicks,’ and I just say, ‘Yea, yea I do.’ We have a young man, Antony Evangelista, that kicks off for us and he’s got a strong leg, has about 12 touchbacks this year. But I haven’t thought once about switching them because Jayleigh is as accurate of a kicker for PATs and short field goals as I’ve ever had. I trust her. …

“That was our first home win ever in school history, and for it to come like that? I just think that’s how it was supposed to go. Jayleigh deserved that moment. That’s a lifelong memory and it just goes to show, for a lot of young ladies, there’s a role for you on the football team. She’s a big part of our team and I’m proud of her. She 100 percent deserves all the credit and accolades she’d getting for this.”

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