sports - the trussville tribune · 2013. 9. 9. · ronnie aldrich, co-owner of cam video in...

www.TrussvilleTribune.com Page B-1 • September 12, 2013

Scan Clay-Chalkville’s roster of 90 or so players, and there is one name that stands out.

Cassie Clayton, No. 37.

She -- yes, she -- is a senior punter, and her presence as the lone fe-male on the No. 2 foot-ball team in Class 6A is not a big deal, not some statement about gender

equality. She just wanted to play football.

“I think what you get here is that there’s a kid wanting to be a part of something positive, and the good thing about it is she was on the team, the kids saw her working, and they never checked up,” said fifth-year Clay-Chalkville head coach Jerry Hood. “It was just like, ‘Cassie’s a part of the team.’”

It started this spring. For no reason other than

it just “popping” into her head one day, Clayton decided she wanted to play. She asked Hood if she could play, and he was all for providing an opportunity. She tried out and made the team.

“I felt relieved (to make the team),” said Clayton, who had been a sideline trainer since her freshman year.

She’s grown up on Alabama and Clay-Chalkville football. Her mom, an avid Crimson

Tide fan, brought Clay-ton to Clay-Chalkville games when she was a baby. She grew up good friends with Robert Greene, a 2012 Clay-Chalkville graduate and All-State performer who is one of the most ac-curate kickers in the school’s history. Clayton has played soccer since she was 5 and is the var-sity girls’ soccer team’s goalie. She attended

A certain opponent sometimes brings out the best in a competitor. It might come from extra motivation fueled by a rivalry, or it might be a simple competi-tive advantage. But for whatever reason, Pinson Val-ley running back Nick Gibson seems to get in touch with his ferocious side against the Mortimer Jordan Blue Devils.

Gibson more than helped the Indians capture a 48-36 victory in their Class 5A, Region 6 opener at home Friday night. You could say he flat-out carried Pinson Valley (2-0, 1-0) to the win.

“I set goals before the season and I want to be the No. 1 running back in the country and go for the most rushing yards,” said an exhausted Gibson.

The junior ball carrier sliced, diced and bulldozed his way to a 447-yard, six-touchdown performance that more than doubled the damage he did to the Blue Devils’ defense last season (220 yards on 24 car-ries and a pair of scores). The 447 yards rushing is a school record and is the fifth-most in state history ac-cording to records kept by the Alabama High School Athletic Association.

The rivalry with the Blue Devils is the Indians’ old-est, according to the Alabama High School Football Historical Society. But Gibson doesn’t feel any spe-cial animosity fueled his record-setting performance.

“It’s nothing,” said Gibson. “I feel the same way with every team. Coach (Matt Glover) has been push-ing me and it has paid off.”

A gutty performance by Mortimer Jordan senior quarterback Devlin Hodges kept things interesting, though. Hodges found the end zone four times, two rushing and two passing.

“I knew Hodges was good and I told our kids that he can beat you by himself, he’s a good quarterback,” Glover said.

If not for a few untimely dropped passes, Hodges might have led the Blue Devils (0-2, 0-1) to an im-pressive road win.

Hodges was particularly fond of finding running back Landon Smith for scores. He connected with Smith in the back of the end zone for a 6-yard touch-down on the visitors’ third drive of the night to give them a 6-0 advantage.

The pair would dial it up once more, this time on a beautiful deep ball that beat senior cornerback Jay-lyne Rhone, who had sticky coverage on the play. A successful two-point conversion gave Mortimer

H e w i t t - Tr u s s v i l l e was its own worst en-emy at Vestavia Hills on Friday night, serv-ing up three turnovers that led to touchdowns in a 24-3 Rebels win on Buddy Anderson Field at Thompson Reynolds Stadium.

“It was like a fau-cet running full bore tonight,” said Hus-kies coach Hal Riddle. “We’re going to have a hard time being success-ful if we don’t get that fixed.”

The Rebels (2-0, 1-0 Class 6A, Region 6) were opportunistic ear-ly, opening the scoring when Vestavia defensive end Dalton Campbell scooped up a fumbled

snap by senior quarter-back Blake Bailey and returning it 27 yards for a touchdown at the 1:12 mark of the first quarter. Later in the first half, the Huskies squandered a field goal opportunity when another bad snap sailed past junior place-kicker Thomas McGet-tigan.

The Rebels ended the first half with a 79-yard drive that culminated in a field goal to push the home team’s lead to 10-0 at the break. Vestavia ju-nior running back Chris-tian Palmer led the Reb-els’ rushing attack in the half, gaining 70 yards on 12 rushes. Palmer fin-ished the game with 79 yards on 14 carries.

“They do a tremendous job up front,” Riddle said. “If you don’t have people at the point of at-

tack, and he gets through the front line, he knows what to do with it.”

The Huskies (0-2, 0-1) continued their turnover woes in the second half. Their first drive seemed promising, but another fumble gave the Rebels the ball at midfield. Two plays later, Vestavia se-nior running back Jordan Johnson broke loose for a 36-yard scoring run to make it 17-0 with 7:39 left in the third quarter.

The Huskies looked to climb back into the game on the next drive, but had to settle for a 43-yard McGettigan field goal to make it a 17-3 game.

Later in the fourth quarter, the Huskies caught a break when they recovered a fumble at their own 3-yard-line. On the very next play, however, the Rebels’

Daniel Burton picked off Bailey and returned it 8 yards for a final touch-down at the 4:11 mark to seal the win.

The Huskies will look to get back on track next week when they face Woodlawn at home in another region game. They’ll look to tighten things up offensively be-tween now and then.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Riddle said. “Defensively our kids are playing hard, but the offense out them in the hole several times. We’ve got to get that stopped.”

The win was the 299th of Rebels coach Buddy Anderson’s career. His first chance at 300 comes against Huffman next week.

The second-ranked Class 6A team in the state was in trouble. Clay-Chalkville had romped up and down the field on Region 7 foe Oxford, but had little to show for it – a turnover on downs inside the 1 and a fumble at the goal line – and the Yellow Jackets’ star running back, Auburn

University commitment Racean “Roc” Thomas, was hungrily gulping up chunks of yardage in an effort to avenge last sea-son’s loss. The Jackets held an early 14-0 lead, and it looked like this might be a sad night for the Cougars.

When Thomas’ 25-yard scoring run pushed the lead to 27-14 with 2:13 left in the third quarter, it looked grim for the home team.

But, as Cougars quar-terback Hayden Moore said after the game, big players make big plays. And he made his share, and star wide receiver/kick returner Brian Clark and running back Sidney Battle made huge plays of their own as Clay-Chalkville piled up 23 fourth-quarter points to grab a 37-27 win at Cou-gar Field in Clay on Fri-day night.

Clark’s 66-yard punt

return for a score and Patrick Millican’s extra point with 7:36 left gave the Cougars their first lead. The defense rose up to force a safety when Oxford quarterback Ty Webber was called for intentional grounding in his own end zone to push the lead to 30-27, and then Battle sealed the win with his second score of the night, a 63-

photo by Ron Burkett

Cassie Clayton is a senior punter on the Clay-Chalkville High School varsity football team.

photo by Anna Malone

Pinson Valley’s Nick Gibson (8) rolls up some of his school-record-setting 447 yards as Mortimer Jordan defenders pursue him in Friday’s game.


Clay-Chalkville’s Terrelle West (12) is greeted in the end zone by teammate Brian Clark after a 60-yard touchdown run in Friday night’s 37-27 win over Oxford.

‘We celebrate’ female football player, Cougars coach says

Gibson carries Indians with 447-yard, 6-TD performance

Turnovers costly for Huskies in loss to Vestavia Hills

Caught between ‘Roc’ and hard place, Cougars roar back with big plays to hold off Oxford

by Gary Lloyd

Editor

by Erik Harris

For The Tribune

by Phil Gibson

For The Tribune

by David Knox

For The Tribune

SportS

see COUGARS page B-2

see PINSON page B-2

see CLAY page B-3

Ronnie Aldrich, co-owner of CAM Video in Trussville, took first place in the National Physique Committee Alabama State Champi-onships Masters 50 com-petition in Gadsden on Aug. 24.

The bodybuilding competition drew 154 contestants and was the largest competition in state history.

Despite winning his age group, Aldrich wasn’t content to just pick on men his own age.

He also competed in the Juniors Middleweight division against all ages and promptly took sec-ond place.

The following week, Aldrich continued his

run when he competed in the North American Nationals in Pittsburgh where he claimed fifth place in the Masters 50 group.

submitted photo

Ronnie Aldrich (center) took first place in the NPC Alabama State Bodybuilding competition in Gadsden

PINSON

www.TrussvilleTribune.comPage B-2 • September 12, 2013

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COUGARS continued from page B-1summer workouts before this season.

“She does a good job,” Hood said. “She prac-tices to get better every day.”

Clayton is a backup punter, behind senior Hayden Moore, also the team’s quarterback. Clayton punted a couple times for an average be-tween 32 and 35 yards in the Cougar Kickoff Classic on Aug. 17. One punt was downed at the 5-yard line.

“I believe that having a girl on the team sets us apart from other teams, and I like that,” Moore said. “She does every-thing that we do and wants to be a part of the team, so she is.”

Hood said Clayton dresses in a separate room from the locker

room. He instructed his players one time to watch their language, and he said there have been no issues. Hood has never coached a female player.

“I have two daughters, and I love them dear-ly, and if they wanted to play football, I sure hope the coach would let them,” Hood said.

Clayton said being on the team can be frustrat-ing sometimes because she doesn’t hear some of the things said in the locker room while she dresses out in a separate room. The experience, however, has been posi-tive.

“They’ve been very accepting of me,” said Clayton, who said her parents are “all for” her being on the team. “It

can be overwhelming, but overall it’s very ex-citing and very fun.”

Hood said that when Clayton approached him about the possibility of playing, he told her to grab a helmet.

“She wanted to be on the team, and we cel-ebrate that,” he said.

Clayton is a member of a team that is likely a top contender for the Al-abama High School Ath-letic Association Class 6A state championship.

“I love the team, and I love being a part of it,” she said. “It’s an amaz-ing thing to be a part of.”

Contact Gary Lloyd at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @GaryALloyd.

PINSON continued from page B-1Jordan a 22-21 lead with 4:18 to go in the third quarter.

Unfortunately for the blue and white, that’s when Gibson kicked it into beast mode.

The junior reached the end zone four times dur-ing the next 16 minutes of play. On three of those trips, he traveled more than 65 yards. The other score was a 5-yarder out of the “Seminole Pack-age” that capped a sev-en-play drive. The bruis-ing run gave the Indians a 41-28 advantage with 7:02 remaining in the game.

It was an effort wor-thy of the attention SEC schools and other col-lege football powers are already giving the junior.

“I told (Gibson) at half-time that I wanted him to take the game over and

he said ‘Coach, I will,’” Glover said. “That’s what I expect from him, he’s a football player.”

Hodges did direct two more scoring drives to keep things respectable, but the damage done by Gibson was too much to overcome.

Pinson Valley senior quarterback Brooks Gar-rett didn’t have to throw much on this night, but he did complete five of eight passes. One key completion went to tight end Dylan Evans, a 10-yard touchdown that trimmed the Blue Dev-ils’ lead to 21-14 at the end of the first half. Gar-rett was picked off once by defensive back Ryan Tucker.

Besides that, Garrett repeatedly turned and handed the rock to Gib-son.

“When we’re aver-aging 10 yards a carry, we’re not going to throw the ball,” said Glover.

Junior Tyree Watson carried the ball 10 times for 36 yards while back-ing up Gibson.

Mortimer Jordan actu-ally won the possession battle in the second half. They ran 43 plays from scrimmage to the Indi-ans’ 27. The Blue Devils also moved the chains 15 times in the final 24 min-utes of play.

But when three second-half drives go for three plays or less because of long Gibson touchdown rushes, it doesn’t matter.

Pinson Valley will look to remain unbeaten next week when the Indians travel to Walker (1-1) for another Region 6 contest Friday.

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www.TrussvilleTribune.com Page B-3 • September 12, 2013

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CLAY continued from page B-1yard sprint, to crush the Yellow Jackets.

“That punt return was what killed us,” said Ox-ford coach Ryan Herring, still looking for his first win at his alma mater.

Thomas rolled up 143 yards in the first quarter alone Friday. But af-ter tweaking his ankle around the eight-minute mark of the second quar-ter he became far less ef-fective.

“We really didn‘t do anything different,” said Cougars coach Jerry Hood. “I think we tack-led better. Roc was hurt and we knew they’d go to their short passing game. We’ve got a lot to work on. A long way to go. But we needed this.

“ I told our team after our pregame meal that

you cannot make a sword unless it has been in fire,” he said. “We need to be in fire. We’ve had too many games where you don’t have to play around here -- play two quarters and come out.

“The second thing is we have been believing what (the media) are say-ing about us,” Hood said. “In reality, we watch practice tape every day and know we’ve got a lot of corrections to make. This is exactly what we need.”

Clark had been shak-en up on an incomplete pass deep in the end zone moments before his game-changing return. “It was actually a ‘safe’ call,” Clark said. “There wasn’t really a return set up but guys made some

great blocks for me.” Said Moore, “(This

comeback) says a lot about our team. But we were behind a lot last year. We believe we’re a second-half team. We didn’t panic.”

If there had been a

time to panic, it might have been when the Cou-gars trailed 27-13 and faced a fourth down and 10 at the Oxford 24 with seconds left in the third period. Moore set up in the pocket to pass but stepped up to ramble 18

yards for a drive-saving first down. He finished the drive off to pull the Cougars within a score with a 4-yard pass over the middle to Cordell Scott with 10:43 left.

“The receiver got held up just a little,” said Moore of his scramble. “I just stepped up in the pocket and took off.”

Moore, a Cincinnati commitment, had an uncharacteristic night throwing the ball, com-pleting just seven of his 16 passes for 96 yards. But he rushed for 109 yards on 13 carries to lead Clay-Chalkville. Battle had 106 yards and two touchdowns on sev-en carries and junior Ter-relle West had 87 yards, including a 60-yard TD run, on 12 tries.

Defensively, Hood singled out the play of senior lineman Jalen Harvey. Johnathan Dan-iel recovered a fourth-quarter fumble. Moore averaged 40.2 yards on four punts, including one deep in Oxford territory that set up the safety. Millican was perfect on all five extra points.

For Oxford, Thomas finished with 199 yards and two touchdowns on 21 carries, but he had just 45 yards on eight carries in the second half. Web-ber was 15-of-21 passing for 188 yards and tossed touchdowns to Desmon Owens and Tredarian Gamble.

Clay-Chalkville trav-els to meet region op-ponent Albertville (1-1, 0-1) on Friday.


Cougars quarterback Hayden Moore (8) picks up yardage against the Yellow Jackets.

On Friday, Pinson Val-ley travels to the scene of the crime.

The Indians play at Class 5A, Region 6 foe Walker in the first game at Walker since a brawl between coaches at the Aug. 30 game against Cullman.

A video of the on-field scene after Cullman’s 13-10 win, shot by Jas-per station TV16, alleg-edly shows Walker head coach John Halladay -- who coached Clay-Chalkville to a 19-5 re-cord during the 2005 and 2006 seasons -- push-ing, punching and taking Cullman defensive coor-dinator Matt Hopper to the ground.

After being placed on paid leave after the incident, Holladay last week resigned from his

position. The brawl has drawn attention from several national media outlets.

Alabama High School Athletic Association Ex-ecutive Director Steve Savarese said the AH-SAA was “saddened” by the incident and is “always disappointed” by unsportsmanlike inci-dents that involve play-ers or coaches.

Pinson Valley head football coach Matt

Glover is just looking forward to the game, an important one for Class 5A, Region 6 standings.

“It’s going to be a good ballgame,” Glover said. “We’re treating it just like a regular game.”

Pinson Valley has plen-ty of motivation for this game. The Indians fell 31-13 at home to Walker last season, turning the ball over five times in about a 10-minute span in the first half. Quarter-back Brooks Garrett did not play in the game a season ago, and running back Nick Gibson was held in check.

Pinson Valley will be looking for payback against a Walker team that is facing numerous distractions already this season.


www.TrussvilleTribune.comPage B-4 • September 12, 2013

The last time Hewitt-Trussville lost to Wood-lawn, the entirety of the current Huskies’ roster had not been born.

Hewitt-Trussville has dominated the series, winning eight straight contests against Wood-lawn, last losing 33-12 in 1994. Hewitt-Trussville leads the all-time series 10-2, according to the Alabama High School Football Historical So-ciety.

Kickoff at Jack Wood Stadium on Friday is set for 7 p.m.

Last season, the Hus-kies defeated the Class 6A, Region 6 oppo-nent Woodlawn 28-18. Hewitt-Trussville was outstanding running the football in that game. Former running back Dakota Harwell rushed

for 159 yards and three touchdowns, and running back Donovan Miller rushed for 99 yards and a score.

In this year’s contest, look for big games out of senior running backs Peyton Palmer, Donald Voltz and Zac Keahey. Sophomore quarterback Zac Thomas, a threat to

run the ball, could also have a big game. Also watch for a strong effort and possibly the forcing of some turnovers from Hewitt-Trussville’s de-fense.


Hewitt-Trussville hosts Woodlawn in first home gameby Gary Lloyd

Editor


Hewitt-Trussville junior wide receiver Dalton Meadows


Pinson Valley’s Deon Gregory (33) wraps up Mortimer Jordan’s Joshua Moon during Friday’s game.

The game last season between Clay-Chalkville and Albertville was a blowout from the open-ing kickoff.

Former Clay-Chalkville player Tre Hrabowski returned the opening kickoff 76 yards for a touchdown, and the Cougars went on to win, 52-7.

Quarterback Hayden Moore threw just seven

passes, completing six for 94 yards and a touch-down. Running back Terrelle West rushed just four times, but for 98 yards, and caught three passes for 67 yards and a touchdown. Fellow back Sidney Battle rushed just three times, but for 60 yards and a score. Ste-phone Sheffield rushed 10 times for 77 yards and a touchdown.

This time around, the game is at Albertville, and kickoff is at 7 p.m.

Clay-Chalkville may

not be able to run the ball quite as easily this go-around, with the emergence of 6-foot-5 senior defensive lineman Tyler Jones. Jones, who totaled more than 20 tackles for loss and nine sacks last season, holds scholarship offers from UAB, Memphis, Troy, Jacksonville State and Samford. Jones may see action for Albertville at left tackle, too.

His presence will be a key focus for a stout Clay-Chalkville offen-

sive line, which includes Ron Hawkins, Aus-tin Sizemore, NeKiah Hinton-Johnson, Matt Reeves and Josh Davis, among others.

This will be the first of three consecutive road contests for Clay-Chalkville, which travels to Pell City next week and Pinson Valley on Sept. 27.


Cougars hit road for first time, face Albertvilleby Gary Lloyd

Editor


The Clay-Chalkville offensive line will be a key against Albertville on Friday.

Friday Feature: Indians travel to site of Walker-Cullman brawlby Gary Lloyd

Editor

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sports - the trussville tribune · 2013. 9. 9. · ronnie aldrich, co-owner of cam video in...

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