Eagles fall in shootout
TRUSSVILLE — After all the scoring from two potent offenses over 47 minutes of play, the game came down to one last drive for Hewitt-Trussville High School to hang on to a five-point lead. And then disaster struck — almost.
With third down and goal on the Oak Mountain 6-yard line, Huskies quarterback Paul Tyson charged up the middle, but fumbled the ball on the 1.
The Eagles recovered, but still needed to move 99 yards in 50 seconds. Oak Mountain quarterback Evan Smith got his offense as far as the 17-yard line, but a circus play at the end didn’t pull the rabbit out of the hat, and Hewitt held on for a 52-47 win in the Class 7A, Region 3 opener for both teams.
“I was just putting my head down and trying to run over the dude on the 1-yard line,” Tyson said, “but I didn’t hold on well enough. He put a helmet on the ball, and it just went up in the air.”
Tyson’s efforts did not end up for naught, though, after he threw three touchdown passes and ran for two more. The Alabama commit (one of at least four Huskies headed to the Capstone) led his offense to several big plays against a stalwart Eagles defense, which did pick off one of Tyson’s throws — an interception by Zay Brown that brought the ball to the Huskies 1-yard line, which running back Luke Percer converted for a touchdown on the next play.
Tyson found Auburn commit Ja’Varrius Johnson seven times, twice for touchdowns, for 175 yards. In total, Tyson completed 16 passes in 27 attempts for 318 yards.
“We knew we had to score a lot of points in this game, and it ended up being a big-time shootout,” Tyson said.
It was likewise a big night for the Eagles’ Luke Percer and Smith. Percer, a senior all-around athlete, scored five touchdowns on runs of 30, 18, 15 and 1 yards, but his biggest score turned the momentum around for the visitors in the third quarter. Right after Tyson had scored on a 2-yard run to put his home team ahead 38-26, Percer took the subsequent kickoff back 97 yards for the score.
Smith was particularly effective early, with five rushes for 119 yards in the first half, including a 60-yard dash for a touchdown and a 39-yard run that began a five-minute, 14-play drive in the second quarter.
“Those guys played phenomenally,” Eagles coach Cris Bell said. “For neither of them is the moment ever too big, and they didn’t flinch down at the end. It never got too much for them.”
But Oak Mountain could never quite get over the hump, as Hewitt never let the Eagles get closer than five points despite the momentum swings.
“I always joke with [Bell] that I hate to play those guys, because we don’t know how to prepare for them and they don’t know how to prepare for us, because we have distinct differences in styles,” Hewitt coach Josh Floyd said. “We had a chance to take over this game in the first half. We still haven’t learned how to apply that kill shot.”
Hewitt (2-1) hosts Hoover next week, while Oak Mountain (1-1) heads to Thompson.
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