CLASS 3A: Early deficit too much for Trinity as T.R. Miller advances
Trinity’s Bo Stewart gets a block from McClain Brown on Miller’s Quay McCants on a run during the Wildcats’ loss on Friday. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
The Trinity Wildcats came into Friday’s playoff meeting with T.R. Miller knowing that turnovers or a slow start would doom their playoff chances.
A slow start put the Wildcats in a quick hole from which they could not recover as the Tigers scored on their first two possessions and rode the momentum to a 21-7 win in the second round of the Class 3A state playoffs at Ragsdale-Boykin Field on Friday night.
T.R. Miller (12-0) will advance to the quarterfinals for the 26th time and will face Houston Academy (11-1), a 45-33 winner over Thomasville, next week in Brewton.
Trinity ends the season at 8-4 with losses to Miller, Houston Academy, Montgomery Academy (10-2) and Reeltown (11-1), four teams with a combined 44-4 record.
The Tigers’ first two touchdowns chewed up 12:41 of the first 15:28, while Trinity punted after the first three plays and turned the ball over on downs on its second possession. T.R. Miller had averaged 4.9 yards per play in that time span while Trinity had 10 yards on seven plays and no first downs.
The Wildcats looked a little better late in the second quarter, but had a touchdown wiped out by a holding penalty and still trailed 14-0 at the half.
“I thought our coaches did an incredible job at halftime adjustments,” Trinity coach Brian Seymore said. “They’ve got an incredible football team. We knew that coming in, knew what we were facing, the challenge ahead of us. They’re very physical. They do things the right way, don’t make a lot of mistakes. They made a couple more plays tonight. I was proud of our team, the way we competed. We can walk off the field with our heads high. I just don’t know if there’s a better team in the 3A South (bracket) than T.R. Miller right now.”
The Wildcat defense was getting pushed around early and then burned on a Nathan Commander 24-yard pass to a wide-open Marshall Lovelace in the end zone for the game’s first points.
“He made some great throws,” Seymore said. “We got mixed up in the coverage schemes a couple of times and, of course, he capitalized on it. When you got a cat you can hand it to like Myles Johnson and a big offensive line that’s physical, you take those play-action shots.”
Myles Johnson, who rushed for 157 yards on 28 carries, capped the second possession with a 4-yard run up the middle early in the second quarter for a 14-0 lead, then added insurance on a 69-yard sprint to the end zone with a little more than four minutes remaining for a 21-0 lead.
Bo Stewart’s fourth-and-two run for 12 yards with 54 seconds remaining could have turned the momentum, but a holding penalty took the points off the scoreboard and the Wildcats came away empty. Another third-quarter drive made it as far as the T.R. Miller 24 before turning the ball over on downs and one in the fourth penalty made it to the T.R. Miller 6 and came up empty.
After Johnson’s second touchdown run, the Wildcats finally put together an 11-play, 80-yard drive capped by Patton Mitchell’s 6-yard scramble that reached the end zone with 57 seconds remaining.
T.R. Miller owned the ball for 26:15 of the first three quarters (compared to 9:45 for Trinity), while Trinity possessed the ball for more plays in the red zone (16 to six) but couldn’t dent the Tiger defensive front.
“They’re very stingy,” Seymore said. “We threw a lot on Patton. He’s a freshman and we threw a lot at him. He’ll learn a lot from this experience, I promise you, but I liked the way he took us down the field and we finally had a scoring drive. We had chances and we didn’t capitalize. Sometimes, you just have to say kudos to those guys. They did a quality job on defense.”