Spartans win high-scoring affair
GARDENDALE – The script switched for a Mountain Brook High School football team accustomed to winning games with grit and defense.
On Friday night, the grit showed up in the second half and the defense did enough to help pull out a 56-42 victory at Gardendale in a Class 6A, Region 5 game. But this one was about a passing game fueled by John Cooper and Clark Sanderson and a marvelous performance by rugged running back Cole Gamble.
“Well, I think punters from both teams should be well rested and recovered for next week,” said Mountain Brook head coach Chris Yeager. “There wasn’t a lot of punting going on tonight.”
As it turns out, that’s not such a bad thing for a Mountain Brook team that clinched second place in Region 5. The Spartans improved to 7-2 overall and 5-1 in region. Mountain Brook will host Buckhorn in the first round of the 6A playoffs on Nov. 10.
“Some games you win 7-0, some games you have to have a shootout,” Yeager said. “We needed a game like this, though. We needed a game where we kept fighting, going back and forth, back and forth.”
They certainly got that from the Rockets on Friday night. Gardendale (3-6 overall, 3-3 in region) scored on its first three drives with speedy running back Boogie Harris eating up yardage in chunks and quarterback Mac Beason coming up with big plays in the passing game. Harris had 219 rushing yards at half, including a 60-yard touchdown run.
But the Spartans matched that scoring production with scoring tosses of 24 and 28 yards from Cooper to Sanderson and a 5-yard scoring run by Gamble. The Spartans finally got a first half stop midway through the second quarter and surged ahead on 35-yard pass from Cooper to tight end JC Adams. On the scoring play, which came on fourth-and-10, Cooper fought away from a potential sack and found a wide open Adams behind the defense.
“It was very big,” said Yeager, whose team led 28-21 at halftime. “At Mountain Brook, we’re not used to that. We’re not used to going, ‘OK guys, we need to get a stop [please].’ At Mountain Brook, we always start with defense.”
On offense, the Spartans started with Gamble running the ball in the second half and he didn’t stop running until Mountain Brook had the game in hand. In the second half alone, Gamble had 25 carries for 215 yards with touchdown runs of 1, 31, 3 and 46 yards. He also gathered in a fourth quarter onside kick and narrowly missed returning it for a score. He finished with 279 rushing yards on 35 carries.
“You tell your linemen get hat on a hat and let him do the rest,” Yeager said. “You just make sure nobody is left unblocked. Cole does the rest. I’ve seen that guy, he’ll split through seams no wider than a credit card. Man, he’s a generational back. The thing I’m most impressed with him where he makes those 4- or 5-yard runs where nothing is there. He might be the best I’ve ever seen at that.”
The other key part of the second half was taking Harris out of the offensive equation for the Rockets. Harris had four touches for 33 yards in the second half, largely because the Spartans kept Gardendale behind the sticks with early-down losses.
Cooper finished with 223 passing yards and Sanderson had seven catches for 175 yards. Gardendale, which had a three-game winning streak snapped but will advance to the playoffs as the No. 4 seed, had 438 total yards, while Mountain Brook gained 505 yards.