CCC BATTLE: Montgomery Academy holds off pesky St. James
St. James quarterback Mason Craig launches a pass over MA’s Michael Kirkland in Friday’s game at Carlisle Field. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
After Montgomery Academy won its season opener by 56 points last week and St. James lost its opener by 26 points, it might have been easy to dismiss the game between the two Capital City Conference rivals at Carlisle Field on Friday night.
St. James turned the ball over twice inside the Montgomery Academy 5-yard line, allowing the Eagles to escape with a 14-7 victory that was closely contested for all 48 minutes of the war waged between the undefeated Eagles and the winless Trojans.
“It’s a rivalry game,” Montgomery Academy coach Ethan McBride observed. “I think when you’re talking about rivalry games, anybody can win them. St. James did a great job of coming out and changing some of the things they’ve shown in the past and did a good job taking away some of our main guys. We did a good job of finding a way to win. As a guy that’s a defensive-minded guy, I love a 14-7 game.”
The opening four minutes looked a little more like opening week. St James had the ball for three plays and lost 18 yards before punting and Montgomery Academy promptly drove 30 yards in six plays for the game’s first touchdown and a quick 7-0 lead.
But the next 44 minutes was a defensive struggle that kept fans from both teams on edge as the Trojans could never maintain the upper hand and the Eagles could never put away their determined foe.
“We were definitely focused coming into this game,” Montgomery Academy senior Mac Benefield said. “We learned our lesson (in a region loss at Wicksburg) last year. We’ve got to give it to St. James. They played an amazing game. But shout out to our guys. Coach McBride stressed bend but don’t break and I think we showed that in every aspect of the game. When times got tough, we executed what we needed to do and we didn’t lose focus. But give it to St. James. They played an amazing game.”
After Reid McBride’s 6-yard quarterback keeper gave Montgomery Academy a 7-0 lead, the Trojans used three consecutive plays to march down the field, the final one a 23-yard run by Grant Phillips to the MA 2-yard line. Miles Zukowski gained a yard, but an illegal procedure penalty moved the ball back to the 6-yard line. Mason Craig gained a yard and on third down, Craig threw into the end zone for a receiver and found Benefield instead.
“That was a big stop for us,” Benefield said. “It definitely shifted the energy.”
St. James would have other opportunities, but for a team that rarely displays big-play capability, the turnover was the difference in the game.
“That crushed us right there,” St. James coach Larry Ware said. “We have to put points on the board when we get chances.”
The Trojans would not get past the Montgomery Academy 40-yard line again until the fourth quarter and by then, a 14-0 deficit seemed almost insurmountable.
“That’s awesome,” McBride said of the goal line stand, “and that’s a testament to these guys. They believe and it doesn’t matter if you’ve got one yard to go or 99 to go, they expect to have success. You saw when pressure was applied, cracks formed. It’s not that we applied pressure, the situation applied pressure. The crowd gets loud, the bands get loud, all that stuff, then it’s who can play. And I think our guys stepped up and made plays when they needed to.”
Montgomery Academy took the opening possession of the third quarter and drove 58 yards in four plays for a 14-0 lead as McBride faked a pitch and kept for 33 yards, then threw to Braden Gordon for 24 yards to the 1-yard line. After Gordon was stopped for no gain, he reached the end zone on the next play to put the Eagles firmly in control.
The Trojans put together an impressive 17-play drive that carried into the first five minutes of the fourth quarter, but a low snap between Craig and Zukowski at the Montgomery Academy 3-yard line was recovered by the Eagles’ John Bennett Lester at the 8.
St. James would get the ball back with four minutes left and Craig hit Phillips in the back of the end zone with an 18-yard touchdown pass with 88 seconds left, but JaBarie Burton recovered the onside kick to finally put away the pesky Trojans.
“The effort was definitely there,” Ware said. “I think we’ve got a lot of kids that hate to lose. It’s just got to be a collective buy-in from everybody. We can’t wait until the fourth quarter to try not to lose. We have to execute better in the first half.”
Montgomery Academy (2-0) opens region play on the road next week at Houston Academy. St. James travels to Union Springs next Friday to open region play at Bullock County High.