Jags set to face James Clemens in first round

If the Spain Park High School football team is to duplicate its playoff success from a year ago, it will have to get past a stern opening test.

The Jaguars open the AHSAA Class 7A state playoffs with a road trip to James Clemens this Friday at 7 p.m.

Spain Park (8-2, 5-2 Class 7A, Region 3) was forced to travel in the first round after losing a tie for second place to Mountain Brook, who defeated the Jags in the regular season.

Spain Park and James Clemens met in the postseason last year as well, as the Jags won 13-10 in the second-round contest on their way to the Super 7.

The winner is set to face the winner between Hoover and Bob Jones in the second round.

The Jags come into the game off a solid win over a previously unbeaten Minor team, who finished the season at 9-1, regularly blowing fellow Class 6A opponents away. The Tenacious Tigers look like a team that could make a run at the 6A title, so the 52-42 shootout win was certainly a solid win for Spain Park.

“As a defensive coach, I don’t like those kind [of games],” he said. “But I kind of thought it was going to be that way. We gave them some short fields…. We got a little tired on defense, but our kids kept playing, and we got some stops. The 2-point conversion stops were big.”

Minor always goes for two points after a touchdown, and was successful three out of six times Thursday.

Spain Park’s normally-potent rushing game was even more so against the Tigers, gaining 344 yards total and 7.5 yards per play. D’Arie Johnson ran for 232 yards on 25 attempts (9.3 yards per carry) and two touchdowns, while Larry Wooden gained 121 yards on 20 carries; he also caught six passes for 67 yards.

“I thought that having one come out and the other go in fresh kind of wore their defense down,” Raney said.

Braxton Barker played quarterback the entire game and was nearly perfect in passing, going 11-of-12 for 129 yards.

- Robert Carter contributed to this story.