Eagles use 2nd half surge to get past Pelham
PELHAM -- The Oak Mountain High School football team could have been compared to sharpshooters in the first half of its game Friday night against Pelham.
Unfortunately, the wounds the Eagles suffered were self-inflicted.
“We were just shooting ourselves in the foot,” Eagles coach Tyler Crane said. “Penalties. Bad snaps. The same thing that gets everybody beat. Mental mistakes.”
Quarterback Evan Smith agreed. “The only one who was stopping us was us. We went in the locker room and (coaches) made some corrections and told us to be us. We went out and did just that.”
After intermission, Crane’s gang successfully hit its target and left Pelham’s Bobby Hayes Field at Ned Bearden Stadium with a 21-0 win over the Panthers.
Neither team scored in the first half as each committed just enough mistakes to keep the other guys within arm’s reach. Perhaps the best play of the first half came when Pelham punter Jake Garner grabbed a bad snap, scrambled and rugby-kicked the ball that bounded to the Eagle 5 to avoid catastrophe.
But there was no avoiding a more focused Oak Mountain team following the halftime break.
“We came out in the second half and executed,” Crane said. “That’s it. Offense and defense. You’ve just got to execute.”
Part of that offensive execution involved junior running back Trey Vassell ramming the ball up the middle. He finished with 76 yards and two touchdowns on 13 carries.
“That’s the game plan every week if we can,” Crane said. “I’d love to be able to throw it and stuff but you’ve got to do whatever you’ve got to do to win.”
Smith finished with 66 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries. His most electrifying effort was a 47-yard gain on a read-option to set up Vassell’s second score.
“The guy stayed and I knew I could get around him,” the signal-caller said. “It was third-and-5 and I just had to get 5 yards and it opened up. I tightroped the sideline and I wanted to score but my teammates had some really good blocks to make that happen.”
“I think any time you give him the ball it’s a wise move," Crane said. "He’s a special player. But he’s not the only one we’ve got. We want to make sure at the end of the day we get him going and give everybody else a chance to show what they can do.”
Pelham coach Tom Causey said both defenses played well.
“We just left ours on the field too long in the second half,” he said. “We couldn’t get first downs to get them off. Credit their offense for doing what they had to do to grind it out.”
The Panthers were missing some offensive linemen due to COVID-19 protocols, but Causey refused to use that as an excuse.
“Our guys who filled in did a good job,” he said. “We just didn’t make the plays we had to make to win the game, and they did.”
Oak Mountain (2-0) hosts Gadsden City next week to begin Class 7A, Region 3 play, while Pelham (1-1) hosts Calera.