Spartans clinch playoff berth with win at Oak Mountain
BIRMINGHAM -- Call them a pair of perfect 10s.
Reid Hogue and Hamp Sisson, who both wear No. 10 jerseys for Mountain Brook, came up big in a 41-27 Spartans win over Oak Mountain on Friday night at Heardmont Park.
Hogue nabbed an interception on a deep ball with 6:24 remaining with his team up a touchdown to seal the game. Mountain Brook scored eight plays later to take a two-touchdown lead.
“It felt really good coming down to the end,” Hogue said. “We needed a play to win and get our offense back the ball so we could score again and run out the clock. I just had to make a play.”
Mountain Brook clinches a Class 7A playoff berth with the victory. The Spartans are now 6-2 overall and 4-2 in Class 7A, Region 3. Oak Mountain falls to 3-5 overall and 3-3 in region play.
Mountain Brook made the fourth quarter difficult for the Eagles. The Spartans rushed the ball 18 times for 127 yards in the final frame to put the game away. Mountain Brook led 21-19 at halftime and pushed its lead to 27-19 when quarterback Hamp Sisson rushed nine yards for a touchdown late in the third quarter. The point-after attempt failed.
Oak Mountain responded with :59 left in the quarter when quarterback Jackson Kimbrell threaded a pass across the middle to Carson Bobo for a 20-yard touchdown. Luke Percer’s 2-yard run for the two-point conversion tied the game at 27 entering the fourth quarter.
The Spartan defense stood tall in the fourth quarter, holding Oak Mountain to just 13 yards. After Harold Joiner’s go-ahead 1-yard touchdown run with 7:14 left, Kimbrell was intercepted by Hogue with 6:24 to play.
“Reid Hogue is a big-play kind of guy,” said Mountain Brook head coach Chris Yeager.
Mountain Brook put the game away eight plays later when Sam Everette found the end zone from six yards out.
“We had to play a pretty perfect game tonight, and we were far from it,” Oak Mountain head coach Cris Bell said. “They had more bullets in the gun than we did.”
The first half featured several big plays. Oak Mountain marched down the field and scored on the game’s opening drive, capped by Connor Wilson’s 13-yard run. Sisson scampered 17 yards to tie the game with 1:32 left in the first quarter. On the final play of the first frame, Sisson bolted 58 yards for a Spartan touchdown.
On the next play from scrimmage, Kimbrell hit Ethan Duncan for a 50-yard touchdown. The point-after attempt was blocked, allowing Mountain Brook to maintain a 14-13 lead. Oak Mountain took the lead with 4:46 until halftime when Kimbrell connected with Nathan Jones for a 42-yard score. The two-point conversion attempt failed. The Spartans took a 21-19 lead into halftime on a 1-yard touchdown run by Everette.
Sisson finished 12-of-18 for 154 yards and rushed 10 times for 121 yards and three touchdowns.
“Hamp Sisson led the team tonight,” Hogue said. “I like the way he played. He made a lot of good throws and was just the captain of the game, really.”
Everette rushed 16 times for 92 yards and two touchdowns. Joiner finished with 88 rushing yards on 17 carries, and A.J. Gates rushed for 49 yards on six carries. Sims Herron caught six passes for 67 yards.
Yeager said he was most proud of his team’s sound offensive play and the defense’s ability to persevere through the first half and play shutdown football in the fourth quarter.
“They adjusted to it,” Yeager said. “I’m really proud of them. We were thinking the dam was about to bust. We just kept patching it up, patching it up.”
Hogue said reaching the playoffs feels amazing.
“I’ve been looking forward to this,” he said. “It feels really good.”
Mountain Brook has now knocked off two teams this season on their homecoming. The Spartans host Huffman next week for their own homecoming. Yeager hopes his team can win that game to solidify a No. 2 seed in the Class 7A playoffs, which would mean hosting a first-round game.
“They scare me,” Yeager said of Huffman. “We’ve got to be real smart.”