Spartans conclude regular season with Thursday night test

The Mountain Brook High School football team is on a five-game winning streak, but each of its last three games could have gone either way.

The Spartans (7-2, 5-2 Class 7A, Region 3) pulled out an overtime win over Vestavia Hills, rallied to beat Oak Mountain and overcame a sluggish start to take down Huffman in the last three weeks.

They will try to keep the winning streak going on Thursday night, as they play Ramsay at Lawson Field at 7 p.m., but they will attempt to win one in convincing fashion.

That is certainly no easy task against the reigning Class 6A state champions. Ramsay, although missing several key contributors from last year’s squad, still presents a great challenge for any team.

“It’s a great test,” Mountain Brook head coach Chris Yeager said of Ramsay following last week’s win over Huffman. “They’ve got good football players. It’s a Thursday night game so we’ll have to do an about face and get ready. That’s a really good non-region game to end the season.”

Ramsay comes in with a 5-4 record and earned the No. 2 seed out of Class 6A, Region 5. After a three-game losing skid, the Rams have snapped out of it with wins over John Carroll and Smiths Station in recent weeks.

Last fall, Mountain Brook edged Ramsay, 19-13, in a similar Thursday night contest to wrap up the regular season.

Mountain Brook’s latest win, a 25-19 victory over Huffman, looked like it would be anything but after the first five minutes.

In the first five minutes of game time, Huffman scored on a fake punt, a 75-yard pass and a pick-six to open up a 19-0 lead.

“You hope you get a wakeup call but you come away with a W,” Yeager said. “But I’m going to tell you what, if we didn’t get a wakeup call, we’re in a coma. That’s the game of football. If you think you’re going to come in giving anything other than your maximum effort and have success you’re fooling yourself. Maybe we learned that lesson as we move forward.”

Mountain Brook chipped away and scored a pair of touchdowns before halftime, and Harold Joiner’s 7-yard touchdown run gave the Spartans the lead for good early in the fourth quarter.

The Spartans have locked in a first-round state playoff matchup at Bob Jones on Nov. 10.

- Gary Lloyd contributed to this report.