Spartans edge Bob Jones to advance in Class 7A playoffs
MADISON — “Busted knuckles, scraped elbows, black eyes and bloody noses. This is our element right here.”
It was just the kind of football game that coach Chris Yeager said his Mountain Brook High School football team loves and thrives in.
And it’s just the kind of game the Spartans played in Friday’s Class 7A first round playoff, as they edged out Bob Jones, 23-22.
Both sides got down and dirty, and suffered their share of hurts. Over the course of the contest, running backs Harold Joiner and A.J. Gates went down and out.
That left quarterback Hamp Sisson to take up the slack — and he did.
Gates put Mountain Brook in the lead in the third quarter with a spectacular 80-yard touchdown run on the first play of a drive. But it was also the last action he would see, and a failed 2-point conversion left the visitors with a tenuous 4-point lead.
The Patriots took the ball late in the third quarter on their own 8-yard line, after the Spartans failed to take advantage of a Bob Jones fumble right after Gates’ mad dash. Nineteen plays later, the Mountain Brook defense held firm, allowing the hosts to get no closer to the goal line than 2 yards and forcing the third Jacob Fruehwald field goal of the night.
The final possession is where Sisson took command.
Taking the ball on his own 35 after a kickoff went out of bounds, Sisson ran the ball six times and completed one pass. Crucially, he made three conversions on third down, including a 21-yard pass to Clay Stearns on third-and-12 to keep the drive alive and the Patriots offense off the field.
“It wasn’t just me. It was the line up front,” Sisson quickly demurred. “They gave me protection all night, and gave a push up front when we were running the ball. They did an excellent job.”
Yeager was more enthusiastic about Sisson. “He’s all guts and backbone. He played like a man.”
Bob Jones (7-4) opened with two Fruehwald field goals to lead 6-0 early in the second quarter, but the Spartans took the lead on a 4-yard Gates touchdown run. The Patriots struck back with a 3-yard scoring run two minutes before halftime (the 2-point conversion attempt was intercepted), but Mountain Brook was able to close the margin to two points with a 39-yard Aidan Hood field goal with 12 seconds left in the half.
The Patriots struck again barely a minute into the second half on another Griffin 3-yard dash. But that’s when Mountain Brook began to seize control of the game, as Gates ran back the following kickoff 58 yards into Pats territory. Six plays later, Sisson ran five yards for a score, and after a short and uneventful possession by Bob Jones, Gates pushed his team into the lead on the 80-yard run.
Gates finished the game with 113 yards on seven carries. Sisson gained 63 yards on the ground with a score, and was 8-of-14 for 113 yards passing. Hamp Greene caught three passes for 53 yards, while Stearns caught twice for 33 yards.
Bob Jones sophomore quarterback Caden Rose, son of coach Kevin Rose, threw 24 completions in 31 attempts for 194 yards.
The Spartans victory puts them in the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2012. They will travel to face second-ranked Thompson, which beat Mountain Brook 40-13 in Alabaster in September.
Yeager didn’t care who the opponent would be. He’s just happy to advance.
“It’s another week we get to play football. And I’d play the Chicago Bears or the Green Bay Packers for another week. I’d play them on the moon. I’d play them in Iraq. I don’t care. It’s just another week we get to play the great game of football,” he said.