CCC BATTLE: Two early scores propels Trinity to win over St. James
Trinity’s Fleming Hall runs for first down in the Wildcats’ win over St. James on Friday. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
Trinity struck for a pair of touchdowns late in the second quarter to take command of its annual battle with St. James, but head coach Brian Seymore wanted more. After a sack by linebacker Luke Hall on first down, Seymore spent his last two timeouts in an effort to force the Trojans to punt.
“I used those last few timeouts there,” Seymore said. “We had worked on ‘block’ all week and I thought we had a chance to get there.”
On fourth down, Hall rushed in to block Dylan Hines’ punt and Chase Parker fell on the ball in the end zone as the first half expired to give the Wildcats a stunning 28-point lead from which the Trojans never recovered.
“The past couple of plays they had, we didn’t execute right,” Hall said, “so we had Bo Stewart come over and follow their motion man and get right in front of him. That took him out of the play. Me and Fleming (Hall) were outside and Fleming went outside their shield and I went right in between. It was a wide-open gap and it was perfect.”
Trinity thoroughly dominated from start to finish in Friday’s 28-7 win at Ragsdale-Boykin Field, but if the two late-quarter touchdown passes determined the outcome, the blocked punt was the exclamation point that finished off the Trojans.
“You can’t let momentum do that,” St. James coach Aubrey Blackwell said. “You can’t put your head down and feel sorry for yourself in one play in football because that’s when it really bites you. We had a mental mistake on the punt where we split the shield. We don’t split the shield, that’s not their job, and they split the shield.”
Fleming Hall scored on a 3-yard run on the first play of the second quarter for a 7-0 lead, then the Wildcats scored two touchdowns in an 18-second span, using a 68-yard pass from Patton Mitchell to Xavier Boswell to set up an 11-yard scoring reception by Matthew Schroll and a fumble by St. James quarterback Chase Perry on the next play from scrimmage to set up a 28-yard touchdown reception by tight end John Morris on the following play for a 21-0 lead.
“I just think we settled down a little bit,” Seymore said. “We were trying to change some plays at the line. He started getting us in some good plays. I thought Patton did a good job controlling the offense. He made some clutch audibles.”
With the loss of 31 yards on the blocked punt, St. James had managed one first down and minus 56 yards in total offense in the first 24 minutes.
“The message for me was at halftime,” Blackwell said, “because we didn’t play St. James football. We weren’t very physical, we didn’t win a lot at the point of attack, we were not the aggressor. I thought in the second half we came out and we were the aggressor. We blocked better when we ran the football and we played really good defense in the second half. But good football teams have to be consistent.”
While the Trojans played better in the second half, scoring on a 13-yard Pruitt Conner run on their first possession, the second quarter had shown Trinity’s defense where to attack.
“We took advantage of things that they’re weak on,” Hall said. “One of those is getting the pass off. Once we were able to get the pass rush going, everything else clicked -- we were stopping the run and they couldn’t throw the ball anywhere.”
Perry was sacked six times by the Wildcat defense, completing just 2 of 19 passes for 10 yards.
“I’ve been in his seat, too,” Blackwell said. “It’s hard to throw it a lot when you’re on your back and running for your life. We had a lot of breakdowns in pass protection tonight so we didn’t give him a fair chance to throw the ball well tonight, either.”
The Trojans finished with 15 total yards, averaging 0.3 yards per play on their 47 plays. The Wildcats, meanwhile, averaged 5.3 yards per play on their 48 plays.
“They’ve run the football well,” Blackwell said. “They did a good job, especially in the first quarter, controlling the line of scrimmage and we didn’t do a good job in the first half. We talked about that being a key to tonight’s game, that if we were going to be victorious we were going to have to win that battle and we didn’t tonight.”
Trinity had lost seven of its last eight meetings with the Trojans before Friday’s victory.
“They hire you to beat those guys,” Seymore said. “You hate to say that because I’ve got a super amount of respect for all of them.”
“It means a lot, especially with the (senior) class we have, my brother being a senior,” Hall said. “It just really sets the tone for the rest of the year.”
Fleming Hall led the defense with five tackles, along with a pass breakup and an interception. Younger brother Luke had three tackles, including a sack and a blocked punt, while Chayman Wilkins and Morris each had a pair of sacks.
Trinity (5-1) will return to 3A Region 2 play next week with a huge region game at Montgomery Academy on Friday.
Conner and Wils Johnson each had six tackles to lead the Trojans. St. James (3-3) will return to 4A Region 3 play next week with a huge region game at Carlisle Field against Booker T. Washington in a matchup of the region’s top two teams in region play.