Demopolis sputters in season opener
MONTGOMERY — Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa took advantage of numerous Demopolis mistakes in the opening half Thursday night to cruise to a 42-7 win in the opening game of the AHSAA Champions Challenge.
The Patriots opened the scoring two minutes into the game when Torin Mayhew hauled in a Cole Frederick for a 41-yard touchdown. At the 7:41 mark in the first quarter, an errant snapped sailed over the head of the Demopolis punter and into the end zone for a safety to make it 8-0.
University of Alabama commit Brian Robinson put his first stamp on the game with 4:32 to go when he scored on a 6-yard run.
The Patriots opened it up to 22-0 with a Frederick 1-yard quarterback sneak with 10:30 left in the second quarter. Jahi Brown then hauled in back-to-back Frederick touchdown passes, the first for 17 yards and the second for 10 to open the lead to 35-0. Robinson, who capped the night with 88 all-purpose yards on 13 touches, punctuated the Hillcrest scoring with a 9-yard run with 3:12 to go in the half.
“I like how hard we played in the second half. I thought we played as hard as we could in the first half. We made a lot of mistakes,” Demopolis coach Stacy Luker, whose team scored its lone touchdown in the second half, said. “Our problem was more than (Robinson). We’ve got things we’ve got to fix. I thought we played as hard as we could. I asked them to do that. I asked them to be physical. They did both those things.”
With the Tigers having mustered only 69 yards in the first half and having given up 274, Luker talked to his team about fight.
“We can either lay down and let them score 80 or we can go out and fight a little bit,” Luker said of what he told his players at half. “It’s early in the season. You can’t run and hide right now. There’s work to be done. We knew that coming here.”
The Tigers held the ball for 31 plays and 144 yards in the second half, stringing together a drive the culminated with a 7-yard A.J. Jackson touchdown run with 5:01 remaining in the game. Clay McVay added the extra point to cap the scoring.
Jackson led all rushers with 74 yards on 22 carries. Logan McVay had 48 yards on 11 rushes. Russ Logan paced the defense with nine tackles while Tavian Brown had seven stops including two tackles for loss and a sack.
“Just get better man; get better at what we can do,” Luker said of the focus for the next week. “Take whatever positives we had tonight and try to improve on them.”
Demopolis is set to host Greensboro next Friday at 7 p.m. at Tiger Stadium.