THREEPEAT: Lowndes Academy wins third straight title
Lowndes Academy celebrates a third straight state title. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
At halftime, Lowndes Academy and Wilcox Academy were locked in a surprising 7-7 tie for the Alabama Independent School Association Class A finals at Cramton Bowl on Thursday.
Lowndes Academy coach Shane Moye had a few choice words for his players in the locker room.
“It was definitely intense,” Lowndes Academy quarterback Clayton Hussey said. “That’s what we needed. We were kind of playing on our heels. Hats off to Wilcox. They played hard and relentless. It definitely was not over until the clock hit zero.”
Moye said it was time for his players to change the narrative.
“It’s definitely different being the huntee instead of the hunter,” Moye said. “The pressure of winning gets to you and I think the first half showed that. I think we played not to lose instead of playing to win like we have the last couple of years. That’s what we talked about at halftime. I told them, “Listen, we’re not playing anything like we’ve played for the last three seasons, we’ve got to go take what’s ours, they’re not going to give it to us.’”
Hussey went out and threw a pair of touchdown passes in the third quarter and the Rebels churned to their third consecutive state title with a 20-7 win over the Wildcats.
Lowndes Academy (13-0) concluded the season as AISA’s only unbeaten team by beating the team this group of Rebels could never beat in middle school.
“This senior group has been super special,” Moye said. “They hold dear to my heart. For the past three seasons, they’ve given me everything they had and they’ve been able to hold that trophy up three times.”
Wilcox Academy concluded the season at 10-4 in its first season under head coach Lebo Jones.
“Those two pass plays really hurt us,” Jones said. “One, we walked up, trying to stop the run, and they checked off to it and made a great play. Then, they ran the ‘water bucket’ play, walked in off the sideline and we didn’t see him to score the other one. But I was proud of our defense. That team scored 500-something points this year and we just held them to 20 points.”
Hussey scored on an 18-yard run midway through the second quarter but Wilcox answered three plays when Julian Curry got behind the defense and JP Beck found him with a 76-yard strike.
“We were ready for it,” Moye said. “No. 5 (Curry) and 4 (Beck) just made plays and continued to make plays all night.”
Hussey had the answer in the third quarter, hitting Bradyn Stokes with a 24-yard pass over the middle, then hitting Watters Box near midfield and Box sprinted to the end zone for 73-yard play.
“In the first half, we got so run-heavy they were flying down and blitzing,” Moye said. “So we tried to loosen them up so we could run the ball.”
Wilcox drove into the red zone twice in the second half but turned it over on downs both times.
“We’ve played 14 guys pretty much all year,” Jones said. “We don’t have much depth. I thought we did all we could do. We tried everything in the book. They’ve only given up 51 points all year and it shows. Everything we tried, they were pretty much all over it.”