Hornets face Gardendale in battle of 4-1 teams

Last week’s 55-35 win over Pelham was the same song and dance for the Chelsea High School football team.

Quarterback Matthew Marquet and running back Zalon Reynolds combined out of the backfield to run wild over their opponent.

“Matt and Zalon are special,” Chelsea head coach Chris Elmore said following the game. “We’re going to ride them as long as we can ride them and hopefully keep them as healthy as we can.”

If there was an area that the Hornets would like to improve upon after moving to 4-1 overall and 2-1 in Class 6A, Region 3, it would be eliminating the big plays from opposing offenses.

“Too many big plays and our defense knows that,” Elmore said. “We played really hard on defense but just gave up a couple of big plays. You can’t do that against good teams and we’re still trying to learn how to limit those as much as we can.”

But it does really help to have a two-headed monster like Marquet and Reynolds, that has been the engine behind a Hornet offense averaging 42 points per contest.

“I thought for the most part we played pretty well tonight, obviously there’s a few things defensively that weren’t right for us," Elmore said. I don’t know if we’re doing a great job of blocking but Matt and Zalon were doing a great job running. It made us look better than we probably executed.”

Friday night, Chelsea steps out of region play to play one of the top teams in Class 6A, Gardendale. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at Chelsea High School.

The teams have only met twice in their history, with the Rockets dominating both matchups in 1966 and 1967, by scores of 41-0 and 32-6, respectively.

This game should not mirror either of those, as both teams have every hope and expectation to be playing well into November this fall. Gardendale is coming off its first setback of the season, a 52-28 loss to Minor last week.

The Rockets began the year with impressive wins over Muscle Shoals and then-No. 2 in Class 7A, James Clemens. They followed that up with blowout wins over Pell City and Carver-Birmingham, and sit at 4-1 on the season.

Quarterback Michael Crowder has a handful of weapons to help his offense move the ball down the field, including brother Steven Crowder, who plays on both sides of the ball.

Chelsea has set itself up well by starting out 2-1 in region play, as the Hornets will enjoy an open week next week before jumping back into Region 3 for three straight games, beginning with a trip to Opelika. The Hornets are only on the road in two of the final six weeks of the regular season after traveling three of the first five.