3A FINAL: Catholic dream comes to an end at hands of Fyffe
The Fyffe Red Devils came from behind to knock off Montgomery Catholic in the Class 3A championship game at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Thursday. (Photos courtesy of Dennis Victory)
By TIM GAYLE
TUSCALOOSA – For 46 minutes and 56 seconds, Catholic football players were living the dream.
The Knights had controlled, if not dominated, the Class 3A championship game with Fyffe for most of the first 46 minutes, using a balanced offense and a steady defense to stay one step ahead of the Red Devils and their 44-game winning streak.
Finally, with 63 seconds remaining, the clock struck midnight on the Knights’ Cinderella run to the finals. Catholic would make one last push, but when a desperation heave into the end zone fell incomplete, the Red Devils (15-0) celebrated their 45th straight win – and third straight state championship – with a 21-16 win over Catholic at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Thursday afternoon.
“It’s just unbelievable,” Fyffe coach Paul Benefield said. “I don’t know hardly what to say or how to put it but it’s a group of kids that love one another and keep fighting for one another and you saw that today, coming back from 10 points down. We’re not a come-from-behind type of team. It’s amazing.”
It was a heartbreaking end to the season for Catholic, who had outplayed Fyffe for nearly the entire game, finally falling victim to most valuable player Ike Rowell’s repeated quarterback keepers and a few self-inflicted wounds along the way.
“That was an incredible football game,” Catholic coach Aubrey Blackwell said. “Congratulations to Coach Benefield and Fyffe on winning this title. I’m so proud of my group. Everybody sold out on this one. So many of these guys fought and came to work every day and for them to be here was something special.”
Catholic (12-3) tied a school record for wins and reached the championship game for the first time in school history but missed on the award it wanted the most – a blue championship trophy that was hoisted for the third consecutive time by the Red Devils, who made every play, every catch and every tackle in the fourth quarter when it counted the most.
“Catholic had a great team,” Benefield said. “We didn’t know if we could stay with them or not. These guys have no quit in them. It’s really a special group of kids.”
In the end, as Rowell crashed into the end zone to cap the amazing comeback, it was Catholic’s offense that failed to answer the challenge. The Knights would gain just 64 total yards in the second half and all but one yard of the 34 earned in the fourth quarter would come on the final 63-second drive.
Through much of the first three quarters, the Red Devils weren’t much of a factor. Fyffe trailed 16-0 at the end of the first quarter and didn’t make a first down until the first play of the second quarter. Fyffe’s fourth possession would reach the end zone on a 4-yard run by Rowell, but the other four possessions over two and a half quarters yielded just two first downs and 45 total yards.
The Knights, meanwhile, moved the ball and kept the Fyffe offense on the sideline for most of the first half, putting together an impressive drive in the final seconds of the first half in driving to a first and goal at the Fyffe 2-yard line.
But just nine seconds remained and when TJ Dudley was stuffed for no gain on a Wildcat run, Blackwell spent the team’s final timeout. Caleb McCreary lobbed a pass too high for DJ Carter in the right corner of the end zone and with four seconds remaining, Judd Osten lined up for a 20-yard field goal attempt.
Osten’s attempt was blocked by Brody Dalton and returned 78 yards for an apparent touchdown by Rowell, but Blackwell challenged the play, noting the play clock had expired and his team should have been penalized for delay of game, negating the play.
Instant replay overturned the play in Blackwell’s favor, but the coach decided against another field goal attempt and had McCreary throw to the left side for Myles Butler, who bobbled the ball out of the back of the end zone for an incomplete pass.
“I thought they’d call the field goal back and it ended up getting blocked so I was just waiting for that moment because I thought we’d get the flag,” Blackwell said. “Then, when that huge shift in momentum happened, I wanted to give ‘14’ (Butler) a chance to go catch another one. I wanted to try to make that momentum swing bigger than it already was. We liked our matchup there and we were really close to getting it, but we just wanted to try to give us a little bigger momentum swing.”
Butler, who finished with 109 yards on six receptions, gave the Knights both first-quarter touchdowns on catches of 12 and 56 yards that spotted Catholic to an early lead, but the senior would have just one catch the remainder of the game as the Red Devils toughened up their defense.
When Fyffe took over with 6:25 remaining in the third quarter, Rowell went to work, rushing for 60 yards and two touchdowns on 17 carries and completing all four pass attempts for 142 yards. His 3-yard keeper between the tackles trimmed the Knights’ lead to 16-13, then Fyffe was on the move again two plays later when Justin Stiefel intercepted a pass for Butler.
The Red Devils had two cracks from the Catholic 1, but Pat Ryan stuffed Rowell for no gain and Marcus Dees sliced through for another stop of Rowell short of the goal, turning the ball over on downs.
Three plays couldn’t get punter Gabe Russo out of the back of the end zone, however, and he stepped on the end line fielding a high snap from center, resulting in a safety.
“I thought we would score but we didn’t,” Benefield said. “They knew it was on the line right there. We talk about things like that all the time, keeping people backed up. We had plenty of time to do something.”
On first down, Rowell threw to a well-covered Dalton for 34 yards. The next play, he found Dalton again for 29 yards and a first down at the Catholic 4.
“Most of the time when we throw the ball, there isn’t anybody covering them,” Rowell said. “Today, they were covering them, but he made two big plays there at the end of the game.”
Two Rowell runs found the end zone with 1:03 remaining, but Catholic would march to the Fyffe 34 before running out of timeouts. On the final play, McCreary heaved a pass toward three Fyffe defenders, Justin Rose and Carter. The ball was tipped into the hands of Carter, but slipped through as time expired.
Rowell finished with 140 yards on 36 carries and completed 5 of 7 passes for 155 yards, accounting for 295 of Fyffe’s 316 total yards. Rowell also had four tackles on defense, which was led by Hunter’s Gillilan’s seven stops.
For Catholic, Jeremiah Cobb rushed for 87 yards on 19 carries, while McCreary completed 14 of 24 passes for 188 yards and two touchdowns with one interception. Dudley led the defense with 10 tackles, followed by Ryan and Jourdan Thomas with nine each.
“I’ve been here since the sixth grade and we’ve built every year since my sixth grade until now,” Butler said. “The thing I love the most about this team this year is we came together as a brotherhood. When we came together, we were something special.”