Spartans take care of business at Mortimer Jordan
KIMBERLY – The Mountain Brook High School football team continued its undefeated romp through Class 6A, Region 5 Friday night at Mortimer Jordan.
Mountain Brook (7-1, 5-0 in region) traveled to north Jefferson County and came away with a 56-14 win over the Blue Devils, setting up an Oct. 21 showdown against Gardendale for the region title.
Despite that intrigue over the final region game, head coach Chris Yeager preached to his team the importance of competing against last week’s version of the Spartans squad and not looking ahead.
“Whoever’s going to be playing in December, in late November, right now their team is trending upward,” Yeager said. “That’s the number one characteristic of a team that’s going to be playing late [in the season]. The best thing our team can do is to trend upward by whatever our niche is and get better at it every single day. And I felt like we did that tonight, too.”
Mountain Brook ran early and often, with Cole Gamble doing much of the early running. The junior bell cow back gathered 192 yards on the ground with five touchdowns – four of those coming before halftime.
Senior quarterback John Colvin’s long first-half passes set up the Spartans deep in the red zone on three separate occasions in the first half, allowing the tough offensive line and backs to punch it in. Jackson Beatty led all Mountain Brook receivers with 120 yards off five catches. Almost half of his yardage total came on a 53-yard bomb from Colvin with 8:37 to go in the second quarter for the Spartans’ fourth touchdown and the team’s only aerial score.
John Cooper spelled Colvin in the second half, as the Spartans largely continued their ground assault. The visiting Spartans took the third quarter’s opening kickoff to near-midfield and were marching along until an interception returned by Mortimer Jordan for 59 yards halted the forward progress. Mountain Brook’s stout defense held, keeping the Blue Devils’ subsequent drive to negative yards, which culminated in a missed 40-yard field goal.
In addition to the third quarter interception, the Spartans turned it over. However, the Blue Devils experienced three drive-stopping plays of their own, as the Mountain Brook defense nabbed two interceptions and jumped on one fumble. Reed Harradine was perfect on eight extra tries for Mountain Brook, as was Ryder Gooch on two extra points for Mortimer Jordan.
“There’s some areas we have to improve on to create depth,” Yeager said of his second- and third-stringers. “We need some depth right now, we need some young guys to step up. I was proud of the way they played, how hard they played, and I also felt like they played a lot smarter than last week, too.”
A blocked punt by Mortimer Jordan early in the fourth quarter put the Blue Devils in business on the Spartans’ 27-yard-line and ended with Gaines Jr.’s second touchdown of the night. The dynamic sophomore finished with 41 rushing yards on 14 attempts with one touchdown. Gaines Jr. also had 35 receiving yards and his team’s lone first-half touchdown on an impressive 33-yard catch-and-run.
Yeager’s squad will host Gardendale next Friday to determine the winner and No. 1 playoff seed for Region 5. Gardendale (6-2, 5-0) dispatched Woodlawn 37-20 on Friday to set up a showdown of the region unbeatens.