CLASSIC KICKOFF: Holmes does it all in Pike Road's win over Prattville

Pike Road’s Jordan Holmes did a little bit of everything in Thursday’s win over Prattville, including lining up at quarterback. He also added thee interceptions, one for a Pick 6, and scored the game-winning touchdown. (Tim Gayle)

By TIM GAYLE

With the Alabama High School Athletic Association Kickoff Classic tied and less than two minutes remaining, Pike Road’s Jordan Holmes knew the time was at hand for making a game-changing play.

“I just thought in my head somebody’s got to make a play,” he said. “I just stepped up and made one. We’ve got great ball players on our team but I just felt like I had the hot hand at the moment.”

Holmes had already supplied a highlight reel in the first 46 minutes of the game. Three interceptions, including one returned for a touchdown, and eight receptions for more than 100 yards easily made the senior the brightest star on the field. But his final catch was truly special in helping the Patriots grab a 21-14 win over the Prattville Lions at Cramton Bowl on Thursday night.

Holmes caught a third-and-nine pass from quarterback Gunnar Gibbs five yards short of the first down marker on the left side of the field, dodged a would-be tackler, weaved toward the center of the field as he left another defender grabbing at air, turned the corner on the right side of the field and ran past another defender, then beat two more to the end zone to complete a 30-yard play for the game-winning points.

 “I know there are five-star players everywhere in the state but you’re not going to find anyone better than that young man, on and off the field,” Pike Road coach Granger Shook said. “DB, corner, safety, nickel, quarterback, running back, receiver, he can probably play center if we asked him. The fact that there’s not an SEC school that has offered him blows me away. He can play at that level.”

Holmes played a handful of plays at quarterback and several at tailback, but it was his last-drive contribution at receiver -- where he had five receptions for 76 yards on the 77-yard drive -- that secured the win for the Patriots. Before that, his first three quarters were filled with interceptions from his play in the Patriot secondary, where he scored the game’s first touchdown on a 50-yard interception return and then turned back two promising Prattville drives with interceptions.

“That’s the coaches,” Holmes said. “We watch a lot of film and they prepared me for the game. We saw it on film and I just brought it to Friday night.” 

Holmes’ incredible performance of three interceptions on defense and nine receptions for 141 yards on offense spoiled the debut of Prattville coach Bobby Carr, who relied on his team’s control of the line of scrimmage to wipe out a 14-0 Pike Road lead but couldn’t find enough offense at the end to overcome Holmes.

“We knew that was our strength,” Carr said. “We feel like our O-line and D-line is definitely our strength. Running the ball with Tristin (Blackmon) and JJ (Williams) and taking our shots when we can, that’s what we do. If you would’ve told me we would have controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, I would have liked our chances. You’ve just got one guy that kept making plays for them. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one guy control the game like that. He’s some kind of player.”

Holmes read a Williams’ pass perfectly midway through the first quarter, jumped the route and returned the interception 50 yards to break a scoreless tie.

“It’s film study, it’s being coachable, it’s being lined up right and it’s having instincts,” Shook said. “He’s the kind of football player that has great instincts and he has the athleticism to capitalize on it.”

The Kennesaw State commitment set up an 80-yard drive with his second interception, this one in the end zone, on the first play of the second quarter. The Patriots needed 10 plays for Gibbs to connect with Elias Holtzclaw on a 26-yard pass for a 14-0 lead but from there, the Patriots found it difficult to sustain anything, managing just 84 yards on the next six possessions leading up to the last one.

“Prattville’s got two SEC players at D-line, we have four first-year starters up front,” Shook said. “We knew it was going to be tough. We didn’t realize it was going to be that tough. My hat’s off to them. Coach Carr does a great job. Prattville is a much improved team.”

Prattville, meanwhile, turned a blocked punt into a touchdown on the next play as Williams rolled right and hit Brayden Graham with a 19-yard pass to cut the lead to 14-7 early in the third quarter and tied the game with 7:56 remaining as Williams ran 3 yards at left end.

“We challenged our kids and the one concern with our kids -- they’ve been working their tails off -- but how are we going to respond when things aren’t going our way,” Carr said. “I think they showed everybody, being down 14-0 and coming back and tying up the game and having the ball on (Pike Road’s) end of the field. We just couldn’t finish a drive or two.

“I thought our defense played extremely well except for a couple of plays. But at the end of the day, it’s about doing the little things. They made more plays than we did.”

Holmes’ touchdown with 76 seconds left provided the game-winning points, but the Lions would try to answer one last challenge. Williams completed five passes, four of them to Deshawn Hall, to move the ball to the Pike Road 20 with 14 seconds left, but a bad snap past an unsuspecting Williams was recovered for a 17-yard loss by Blackmon on the game’s final play as the Lions had no timeouts to stop the clock.  

“(Prattville players) said their defense clapped and our center heard that and snapped it,” Carr said. “It is what it is, but we didn’t quit all the way to the very end. I’m just so proud of our kids. I just hate that we came up short.” 

For Pike Road, it was the school’s first-ever win over a Class 7A program in its eight-year history and the first season opening win in Shook’s three years, avenging last year’s loss to the Lions.  

“It means a lot,” Holmes said. “We had a lot of mental mistakes last year so I feel like we learned from our mistakes last year and just executed them tonight.”

Pike Road (1-0) returns home to play 7A Enterprise next week, while Prattville (0-1) will return home to play host to 6A Stanhope Elmore next week.