Three teams left in state title hunt
Published 12:00 am Thursday, November 15, 2007
I was talking with my &8216;trophy wife&8217; the other night about how this 2007 football season has just seemed to fly by (as in F-16&8217;s, with after burners nonetheless). It really seems like just yesterday Sweet Water was knocking off pre-season No. 2 4A Thomasville on a Thursday night. Mike Randall, &8216;Stevie Bear on the Air&8217; Henderson and I were loading up the &8216;the victory train&8217; and heading to York for the first Tiger Nation broadcast of the year.
I was heading over to Montgomery for an insurance meeting&8230;wait, that really was yesterday.
In any event, time flies when you are having a goodtime.
Alabama High School Athletic Association plays Round 2 tonight and &8216;the Privates&8217; compete their season with championship games. At this stage of the playoff there are no cupcakes, only the few, the proud, the uh, the umm, uh, the winners from last week. Yes, that&8217;s it, the winners from last week.
Several teams from our area, such as Demopolis, A.L. Johnson, Sunshine and Marengo Academy made the playoff but only the ones below are still standing.
A game of interest to local fans is down the road in Clarke County where coach Waldon Tucker&8217;s Fayette Tigers visit the Thomasville Tigers.
Let&8217;s move right into our games for tonight shall we.
Sweet Water (10-0) at St. Jude (9-2)
It&8217;s somewhat of a rare thing for Sweet Water to play a team from Montgomery, much less in Montgomery. As a matter of fact, the last time (that I can find) that &8216;Da Dawgs&8217; faced off with a group out of the Capital City was the1986 semi finals. SWHS edged Montgomery Academy 13-10.
Last week, the Bulldogs routed Providence Christian 68-7 while St. Jude was beating McIntosh.
The &8216;Sweeties&8217; are gunning for their second set of &8216;bling&8217; in two years (three of the last four), whereas St. Jude&8217;s last visit to the post season was in 1998.
A Bulldog win tonight puts them on a collision course with Brantley (who manhandled Sunshine in round one) next week in the quarterfinals.
Side bar trivia: Outstanding &8216;Dawg&8217; RB Anthony Landrum has been selected to play in the Alabama &045; Mississippi All Star in Mobile on December 17.
Linden (9-2) at Millry (11-0)
Linden edged the Ariton Purple Cats 18-14 at home last week in round one; Millry pounded Billingsley.
In the mid &8216;90&8217;s these two met four times in the regular season with Millry taking three of four.
Millry is undefeated for one simple reason: they&8217;ve played pretty darn good football for 11 games. However, the playoffs in the past have not been very kind to the green and white clad Wildcats. Despite the fact they have been to playoff land every year since 1997 they have never advanced beyond the second round.
Spotlight question of the week: Could this be the year of the Cat?
Or not?
Meadowview Christian (9-3) at Southern (11-0)
Regardless of how you interpret the above records in regards to this 4 p.m. championship game in Troy, remember for all practical purposes they are both 2-0 in the second season.
Meadowview was perfect in two point conversions last week against Marengo as they nipped the Longhorns 16-15.
Southern in a 42-0 pummeling of Patrician last week could very well have stolen a line from the movie &8216;Blazing Saddles.&8217;
Dig this: &8220;Kickers? We don&8217;t need no stinkin&8217; kickers&8221;.
Are you feeling it yet?
OK, let us move on.
I would not like to be in the way of coach Shaun Bonds and his band of Hale cats (humorous synonym for the Southern Cougars) as they go for &8220;Fo&8217; in a Row.&8221;
Notables from last week
Every team from 5A Region 3 lost (Demopolis, McAdory, Bibb and Chilton) to teams from Region 1 (Vigor, UMS, Williamson and St. Paul&8217;s)
Former DHS coaches Moody (Trinity), Goodwin (Russellville), Rose (N. Jackson) led their respective teams to victory in round one
Pancake of the week: Sweet Water 68, Providence 7
Left the Defense on the Bus: Fyffe 70, Cleveland 37
Low Ball of the week: Saks 10, Rogers 6
If we only had a kicker: Plainview 21, Clements 20
How did we score this many points and lose: Hartselle 41, Cullman 42
Until next time, play hard; play for fun; play to win.
Mike Grayson is contributing columnist to the Times.