Catholic falls for a second-straight game
Eufaula quarterback Jaylin Wright avoids tacklers in the Tigers’ win over Catholic on Friday. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
The second-half collapse at St. Clair County last week painted a disturbing picture for Catholic, whose lack of depth allowed the Saints to rally to victory.
On Friday, the issue surfaced again as the Knights blew a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter and lost their region opener to Eufaula 35-24 as the Tigers scored 21 unanswered points in the final quarter.
“As we go forward, there’s going to be a lot of long faces,” Catholic coach Jonathan Chandler said. “Rallying the troops, if you will. We’ve just got to keep on fighting. It’s not back to the drawing board. At the end of the day, we cannot win the fourth quarter and we’ve got to figure out a way to finish football games.
“We are who we are and we’ve got who we’ve got. Our mentality has got to get into fight mode. We no longer are in target mode and people avoiding us. Now, people are coming after us.”
The play of Eufaula quarterback Jaylin Wright pointed out the struggles on the Catholic defense as Wright continually bounced off of would-be tacklers and continued running for first downs, proving to be almost unstoppable in the second half.
“We had missed tackles on defense, we had missed tackles on our kickoff team,” Chandler said. “We knew 1 (Wright) and 0 (Atorian Slaughter) were going to be a handful coming into this game. We knew this team was going to run. But you’ve got to tip your hat to them. No. 1 found a way to not go down and we’re standing around the pile.”
The region loss was the first for Catholic since losing at Headland 34-29 on Oct. 26, 2018, a string of 40 consecutive region games. The Knights’ last region loss at home was to Straughn on Oct. 2, 2015.
It was also the first time Catholic lost back-to-back games in the regular season since 2015.
“Back to a new winning streak,” Chandler said. “Our winning streak that we’re shooting for is 1-0.”
Wright was hit by Cayden Dees in the final minute of the first half and the ball bounced into the hands of Catholic teammate Brandarius Daniels, who ran 44 yards to the end zone and gave the Knights a stunning 17-7 halftime lead.
Another touchdown could have finished off the Tigers, but Catholic couldn’t drive the ball on its first possession of the second half and Eufaula found the end zone when Wright bounced off of three would-be tacklers, kept his feet and kept running 53 yards to the end zone.
“He played his butt off but he had those two turnovers early,” Eufaula coach Jerrell Jernigan said. “I told him forget about it. When things are going good, everyone loves the quarterback; when things are going bad, everybody blames the quarterback. So he’s got to forget about the first half and come back in the second half ready to go.”
Wright completed 13 of 18 passes for 176 yards, while rushing 16 times for 122 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
After a Catholic touchdown, Wright scored again to trim the deficit to three points with 10:08 remaining. The Knights were struggling for any offensive consistency, but the Tigers were just warming up as Slaughter scored a pair of touchdowns in the final 10 minutes to finish off the Knights.
“We went in at halftime and made some adjustments and they came out in the second half and played their butts off,” Jernigan said. “The big thing was lining up right and tackling. Everybody went to the ball, playing as one.
“We had a little success in the first half, it was just the turnovers. We eliminated those turnovers in the second half and we came out with a great win.”
Catholic (1-2) now goes on the road for the next month, playing Pensacola Catholic, Charles Henderson, Carroll and Headland over a five-week span.
Eufaula (2-1) returns home to play Headland in a region game next week.