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The Jags did it.
On a brisk, fall Thursday evening at the Hoover Met in a game designated as a Great American Rivalry, Spain Park broke the streak.
After 13 straight losses to their cross-town rival, save a forfeit victory in 2007, Spain Park (5-1, 4-0) defeated mighty Hoover High (5-1, 4-1) for the first time in school history, toppling the Bucs 17-0 and earning a critical 7A, Region 3 victory.
“It’s unbelievable to do something that’s been tried so many times before,” said Spain Park coach Shawn Raney, a former Hoover assistant. “Hoover’s got a special place in my heart, and I love those coaches, but to get this done for the program, what we’ve been trying to do for the past three years, it’s just unreal.”
The reality of Thursday night’s contest might take a little while to set in for the Hoover side as well.
Prior to the shutout loss, Hoover had won 43 straight in-state games, falling last in the 2011 state championship when they lost to Prattville 35-34.
But even more impressively, at least for the Spain Park defense, is the amount of time that’s passed since Hoover was last shut out. To find that, you have to go back to Sept. 27, 1991, when the Bucs were blanked 13-0 by Hewitt-Trussville.
To put it in perspective, that was 10 years before Spain Park High School’s inception.
“To win in it that fashion, and to win it, it’s unbelievable,” Raney said. “Our kids just stepped up when they had to.”
They certainly did, especially on defense.
Thanks to a colossal effort on the defensive side of the ball, the Jags shut down the high-powered Buccaneer offense, starting with their quarterback.
Spain Park did an exceptional job of containing dual-threat quarterback Chris Vacarella, applying pressure throughout the night and preventing him from exploiting any open lanes with his arm or his legs. According to the stats, he was officially held to just two yards of rushing and a sub-50 completion percentage.
Whenever Vacarella attempted to flee the pocket, he was hotly pursued by a swarm of Jaguars, including linebacker Perry Young, who totaled seven solo tackles and came up with a huge sack in the fourth quarter with the Bucs pinned against their own goal line.
“It was a team thing,” Young said. “We came out to this game just knowing it was going to be a fight, it was going to be all four quarters, and that was what we did. We came out here and fought as a family and listened to our coaches and just followed their lead.”
On the night, the Bucs were held to 10 total first downs, with four coming on one possession in the fourth quarter that resulted in a missed 37-yard field goal.
Spain Park forced three consecutive Hoover punts to start the game and then came up with a pair of key stops when the Bucs reached the red zone twice in the second quarter. Hoover missed a field goal on their first trip and then failed to convert on fourth-and-1 on their second trip.
Defensive lineman Damon Wright anchored the Jags’ front four throughout the night and came up with the key stop on the pivotal fourth down.
In the second half, the Spain Park defense looked even fiercer than it did in the first. Each of Hoover’s third quarter possessions culminated in three-and-outs and stalled either at or inside of their own 20-yard line.
In total, the Jags’ defense held Hoover to a dismal 95 yards of offense in the second half.
“They played their tails off,” Raney said. “I think the mistake that you make when you play Hoover is kids try to do too much, and we just continued to tell them, ‘just do your part and trust your teammates that they’re going to make a play behind you,’ and just watching from the sidelines, that’s exactly what we did.”
On the offensive side of the ball, Spain Park running back Larry Wooden was named the game’s MVP after racking up 74 rushing yards and touchdown.
“It was all the offensive line,” Wooden said. “I can’t do nothing without them. They blocked, they opened up the holes and I ran through them.”
