THURSDAY PREPS: Vestavia Hills tops Catholic; Prattville, Elmore County finish with wins
Vestavia Hills running back Carson Purdy stacked up by the Catholic defense in the Rebels’ win on Thursday. (Ryan Gayle)
COMBINED REPORTS
VESTAVIA HILLS -- The challenge facing Catholic in its Thursday night battle with Class 7A Vestavia Hills at Buddy Anderson Field required perfect execution and a lot of luck to keep pace with the Rebels. The last thing the Knights needed was a slow start.
The Rebels scored three touchdowns in the first 16 minutes while holding Catholic to three first downs on the way to a predictable 40-13 rout that was over almost as quickly as it started.
“We were timid, the lights were too big for some of us,” Catholic coach Jonathan Chandler said. “But the seniors challenged everybody at halftime and I was proud of the effort we had in the second half. The way we finished is the way we’re used to playing. The first half was not.”
The Rebels’ fast-paced offense rarely gave Catholic players time to catch their breath, scoring on a pair of two-point conversions and utilizing three touchdown passes, racing out to a quick 22-0 lead before the Knights finally found some offense.
“Really, it was an exhibition game, that’s all it was,” Vestavia Hills coach Robert Evans said. “We were very basic tonight, very simple. We played fast. We have 120 players, they have 50, so they had some guys going both ways. They don’t see people that play at our pace. That was by design. Let’s try to tire their players that are going both ways.
“We didn’t play great, but they’ve got a good team. They’re defending 5A state champions and we played well enough to win going away.”
Vestavia Hills (8-2) will play at Auburn in the first round of the 7A playoffs next week, but while Evans wasn’t sure he gained anything from playing the Knights, he wanted his players to have the same routine in the final week of the regular season, so he scheduled a program with the enrollment of a 3A school.
“We were scheduled to play Clay-Chalkville,” Evans said. “They called up during the offseason and didn’t want to play Week 10. They got beat up last year playing us going into the playoffs so they scheduled another opponent on one of their other weeks and we had to scramble for a game. Thankfully, (Catholic) agreed to play. We want to play 6A, 7A teams but you’ve got to play 10 games and there’s not many people playing Week 10 any more.”
Vestavia Hills quarterback Charlie Taaffe ran three times for 54 yards and a touchdown, while completing 8 of 15 passes for 164 yards and two touchdowns, all in the first half.
“We intentionally didn’t run Charlie tonight by design,” Evans said. “We know that he’s going to have to run in the playoffs for us to be successful.”
The Rebels averaged 7.44 yards per play and 6.03 yards per rush. Their only negative play of the game came on the final play when third-string quarterback Hudson Mote took the snap and kneeled to run out the clock.
Catholic, meanwhile, struggled to move the ball against the Rebels’ defensive front as six of the Knights’ 20 rushing plays were stopped behind the line of scrimmage.
“Honestly, we haven’t been able to run the football great all year,” Chandler said. “We didn’t give up on doing that, just changed our mentality that we were going to pass to open up the run. That’s a very well coached football team. They’re very sound. There were things that were there and then closed up quick.”
The Knights’ passing game struggled for consistency but clicked at times as CJ Sankey completed 14 of 17 passes for 206 yards and two touchdowns. Michael Sheffield caught nine of Sankey’s passes for 96 yards and a touchdown.
“We sat some guys defensively that were starters,” Evans said, “so we had some guys that don’t normally play in certain positions and it showed up. They had three explosive plays on the night and that was their offense. Other than that, we kind of held them down.”
Carson Purdy scored on a 2-yard run to cap the Rebels’ first possession, but the next two found the end zone with big plays -- a 29-yard keeper by Taaffe and a 34-yard pass from Taaffe to Luke Stubbs -- for a 22-0 lead.
Catholic got on the scoreboard midway through the second quarter on back-to-back passes by Sankey to Sheffield covering 34 and the final 29 yards, but Taaffe answered two plays later on a 59-yard bomb to Stubbs behind the Catholic secondary for a 30-6 halftime lead.
After Rebel backup Price Lamaster duplicated Taaffe’s throw with a 35-yard touchdown strike to Stubbs to open the second half, Catholic countered with three Sankey completions, including a 53-yard pass to Elijah Nunnerly to set up a 15-yard touchdown pass to tailback Zaylon Ligon on the next play.
While both teams had some success in the air, the Knights managed just 28 rushing yards on 20 carries. Catholic (6-4) had a five-game winning streak snapped on Thursday, but will go back to work in preparation for next Friday’s first-round playoff game with Citronelle at home.
“We’ll learn off of this,” Chandler said. “Some of the mistakes we’ve been making that you may not see when you’re winning 48-7, you see those things coming out of this. That’s going to prepare us for the playoffs. This will give us talking points and coaching points and for some of our kids to see what it’s like to play big-time competition.”
Prattville 43, JAG 12
The Lions fell behind early but then scored 22 unanswered points on the way to a win over JAG at Cramton Bowl on Thursday, completing the 2025 season.
Quarterback Will McKay passed for 191 yards and a touchdown to lead the Prattville offense. Tristin Blackmon added 134 yards and three touchdowns for Prattville, which finished the year at 6-4.
Damien Dickerson added a Pick-6 with a return for 40 yards for the Lions late in the second quarter. CJ Brown closed out the scoring with a 30-yard run in the fourth quarter.
JAG got 104 yards passing from Kingston Young, who also ran for a score that gave the Jaguars a brief 6-0 lead in the first quarter. He threw a touchdown pass to Charles Knight in the second quarter for the only other points for the Jaguars.
JAG finished the season with a record of 1-9.
Elmore County 28, Chilton County 0
CLANTON - Quarterback Gage Davis passed for 190 yards and three touchdowns as the Panthers closed out the regular season with a win over the Tigers on Friday at Tiger Stadium.
Davis was 15 of 22 in the air, hitting Tate Neely for two touchdowns and Seth McGhee with another scoring strike. The Panthers finished with 345 yards in total offense.
McNeely finished with four receptions for 50 yards while McGhee had two catches for 44 yards. Eli Thames led the rushing attack with 82 yards on 12 carries with a touchdown.
McGhee had an interception for the Elmore County defense.
The Panthers (7-3) will open play in the Class 5A playoffs with a first-round game at Demopolis next Friday. Chilton County ends its season at 1-9.
Tallassee 24, Holtville 8
HOLTVILLE -- Tallassee closed out the regular season on a high note, defeating the Bulldogs 24-8 for its third consecutive win on Thursday night.
The Tigers (6-4) will travel to American Christian Academy next week for the first round of the 4A state playoffs.
Holtville (2-8) closed out the 2025 season with its seventh consecutive loss. Jacob Burgess led the Bulldogs with 108 passing yards, 63 of which was caught by Bryant Boone.
Dashawn Zeigler rushed for 55 yards and had the Bulldogs’ only touchdown.
Defensively, Brock Godwin had six tackles to lead the Bulldogs. Jashon Marshall had an interception and Blake Irvin had a sack for Holtville.
Lowndes Academy 41, Hooper Academy 7
HOPE HULL -- Whit Holley rushed for 110 yards and three touchdowns on nine carries to lead the Rebels to a 41-7 win over Hooper Academy at Davis-Henry Field on Thursday night.
Holley scored on runs of 1, 7 and 5 yards, closing out the first half with a pair of touchdown runs that gave the Rebels a 32-7 halftime lead.
Bradyn Stokes completed 8 of 11 passes for 177 yards, throwing touchdown passes of 26 and 38 yards to Huston Hampton to give Lowndes a comfortable lead. Hampton had 97 yards on three receptions, with his first touchdown catch giving the Rebels a 20-0 lead and his second scoring reception making it 39-7 in the third quarter.
Hunter Bowman completed 6 of 12 passes for 106 yards and a touchdown to lead Hooper.
Defensively, Cooper Carver had eight tackles to lead Lowndes, followed by Crawford Dansby with seven and Grant Casey with five tackles, including two for loss and a fumble recovery.
Hooper ends the 2025 season st 2-8 after suffering its fifth consecutive loss.
Lowndes (8-2) returns home to play Valiant Cross in the first round of the AAA state playoffs next Friday at Mac Champion Stadium.