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Talk of untimely penalties and drive-altering turnovers could have taken up Josh Niblett’s entire visit with the media on Friday night.
Sure, the subject did come up. But the Hoover High football coach made a much more important point after his team did enough to knock off Mountain Brook, 21-14, in the Class 7A, Region 3 opener at Spartan Stadium.
“Championship teams find a way to win when they’re not playing their best,” Niblett said.
That’s exactly what the Bucs did on a muggy Friday night, extending their in-state win streak to 41 games. It wasn’t always pretty and it was far from easy but the Bucs found a way to win and that’s what counts.
The biggest plays on a night filled with mistakes came with the score tied at 14 in the final five minutes of the game. It began with cornerback P.J. Hall stepping in front of a Mountain Brook receiver to intercept a pass thrown by Spartan quarterback Connor Adair with just under five minutes left in game that was tied at 14 at the time.
“That was the catalyst,” Niblett said of Hall’s interception. “We expect guys like that to go make plays for us. He played the ball, matched the route (and) made a great pick. He almost kept his feet to score. Making that play kind of gives you the shot in the arm, now, to go ahead and do what you do.”
What the Bucs do – at least in this case – is give the ball to running back C.J. Sturdivant and let the offensive line open holes. Three Sturdivant runs netted the 35 yards needed for the go-ahead score with the touchdown run covering 9 yards. Barret Pickering added the extra point to give the Bucs a 21-14 advantage with 4:18 left.
“I want to give it the o-line, without them I wouldn’t have gotten into the end zone,” said Sturdivant, who finished with 106 rushing yards on 13 carries.
His touchdown run put Hoover ahead for good but turnovers were part of the reason the game came down to the end. Both of Hoover’s second half turnovers came after Mountain Brook linebacker Joe Donald separated the football from the running back. The second one was scooped up by junior defensive back Zachary Carroll, who carried the ball 13 yards into the end zone to tie the game at 14 with 3:43 left in the third quarter.
Early on, though, it looked like Hoover might be headed toward a comfortable win. The defense established itself early, allowing just one first down on the first four Mountain Brook possessions, and the offense moved the ball crisply.
The Bucs (3-0 overall, 1-0 region) made a big mistake on the opening offensive possession when Christopher Vacarella’s pass toward the sideline was ruled a lateral and Mountain Brook recovered. But Vacarella recovered quickly – hitting 12 of his first 13 passes – to lead the Bucs to two scores. His 20-yard pass to Cortez Hall gave Hoover a 7-0 lead with 4:29 gone in the first quarter and the next Hoover possession ended with an 8-yard touchdown run by Vonte Brackett.
Mountain Brook (1-1, 0-1) crawled back to within a touchdown late in the first half on a 52-yard drive that included a 26-yard pass from Adair to running back Harrison Pyburn and culminated with those two teaming up for a 4-yard touchdown pass.
It stayed that way until Hall’s big play on defense and then it was up to the Hoover offense to win the game on the ground. The Hoover defense then made one more stop before Sturdivant’s 14-yard run on 4th-and-3 from the Spartans 33-yard line allowed the Bucs to run out the clock.
“Defense played well tonight,” Niblett said. “Defense wins championships. They give you an opportunity to have a chance to win and they gave us a chance tonight.”
