Trinity finishes regular season strong with dominance of St. James
Trinity quarterback TJ Bonner is pressured by St. James defender AJ Alozie in the Wildcats’ win on Friday. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
There’s nothing like saving your best for last.
Trinity’s last regular-season game was a home date with its biggest rival, St. James, and the Wildcats responded with their best performance of the season in a 33-7 win over the Trojans at Ragsdale-Boykin Field on Friday night.
“It’s really huge for us, going into playoffs with a big win against a team that we’ve struggled with in the past,” senior defensive back Jon Everett Dennis said. “It was a big win for us.
“It was an all-around team effort. The offense started producing what we needed, the defense started making tackles and locking them down. The more physical team that tackles the best, they’re going to come out on top. We simply tackled and ran to the football as a team. That made them start airing it out and that’s when our DBs took over with turnovers.”
Dennis had the third and final interception of the night, stepping in front of a halfback pass from Cosner Harrison to quarterback KJ Jackson and returning it 42 yards to set up the Wildcats’ final touchdown.
That final scoring drive featured four consecutive runs by backup quarterback Coleman Stanley, including the final 5-yard run. Of the Wildcats’ 35 rushing plays, 17 were designed quarterback runs.
“We wanted to establish the run game early,” Trinity coach Granger Shook said, “and they packed the box and it became a numbers game. When we found their adjustments, we went back to our normal stuff and came back to it later.”
It was a dominating performance by the Trinity defense, which throttled the Trojan offense and turned a tenuous 13-7 halftime lead into a comfortable margin by controlling the ball for 14:38 of the final 24 minutes in the game.
“Congratulations to Trinity, they played a heck of a game, they deserved to win,” Perry said. “They just outplayed us. They play good defense, always have, always will. I think we played hard, we had some things go bad for us. We kept fighting through, but we’ve got to get better next week to play Montevallo. I’ve got a lot of confidence that we’ll regroup and play better next week.”
St. James (7-3) returns to Carlisle Field to play host to Montevallo in the first round of the 4A state playoffs next Friday.
The win snapped a four-game winning streak by the Trojans in the series.
“The St. James-Trinity rivalry is always a big one,” Shook said. “Doesn’t matter if you’re in the same classification or not. We see each other around town and go to the same churches. So it’s always nice to beat those guys.
“Beating St. James is great, but we’ve got the playoffs to prepare for and our sights are a little higher.”
The win lifted Trinity to 8-2, it’s best showing since going 8-2 in 2013 and losing in the first round of the state playoffs.
Trinity’s reward is to host a first-round 3A playoff game against Flomaton next Friday at Ragsdale-Boykin Field. From 2000-17, the Hurricanes had just six teams with seven or more victories but in the last three years they are 31-7, with six of those seven losses to region rivals. Both losses this year are by COVID-19 forfeit.
If the Wildcats play like they did on Friday, they’ll be hard to beat. John David Bonner completed 8 of 16 passes for 174 yards and four touchdowns and was Trinity’s leading rusher with 71 yards on 13 carries. Bonner hit Parker Patterson with a 12-yard pass to give the Wildcats a 7-0 lead on its first possession; found Coleman Ellis behind the defense for a 46-yard touchdown on the first play of the second quarter; and finished off the Trojans with leaping receptions by Jake Hufham for 31 yards and Patterson for 9 and a 26-7 lead.
St. James, meanwhile, had no first downs in the first and third quarters and two of the Trojans’ four first downs in the second quarter came on an 83-yard touchdown run by Harrison and another 26-yard run by Harrison that gave him 109 of his 139 yards in the game. Jackson, meanwhile, was 4 of 17 for 63 yards with two interceptions, having little success in generating any offense.
“Coach Perry and St. James, they do a phenomenal job,” Shook said. “They’re really young. They will bounce back. But our boys played with a chip on their shoulders. Our boys wanted it tonight really bad.”
Walton Cherry led the Trinity defense with 12 tackles and a fumble recovery while Will Chandler, who constantly pressured Jackson all night, had nine tackles and a sack, helping the seniors celebrate their first-ever varsity win against the Trojans.
“It’s truly a special moment,” Dennis said. “All my guys were super excited that our last St. James game was a win, a big win at that.”