The Phil Campbell High School varsity football team (7-3) defeated longtime rival Hackleburg High School (8-2), the No. 10-ranked team in Class 1A, 50-27 on Thursday night to finish the regular season and clinch the second seed in Class 2A Region 7.
After initially trailing 7-0, Phil Campbell scored 21 unanswered points to close out the first half and then outscored the Panthers 29-20 in the final 24 minutes to secure the program’s seventh win over its longest-running rival in their last eight meetings.
The victory also extended the Bobcats’ current winning streak to seven games, the longest such streak for the program since 2001.
“Once we lost the first three games of the season I said that every game from there on out would be extremely important for us,” Phil Campbell head coach Jacob Hamilton said. “This being a rivalry game, it was important, and I told the kids that we had to win to give ourselves a shot at hosting in the playoffs. We can’t control what anyone else is doing, we can only control what we do. We went out and answered the challenge.”
A 45-yard rushing touchdown by Hackleburg opened the scoring early in the first quarter, but Phil Campbell responded later in the period with a nine-yard touchdown pass from senior quarterback Hayston Scott to fellow senior Cody Sneed to tie the game up 7-7.
The Bobcats scored their next two touchdowns in the second quarter, both on rushes by junior running back Braxton Downey. Downey’s first rushing score came early in the second, a nine-yard dash into the endzone to put PCHS up 13-7. The next one, a three-yard rush, finished off a 13-play, nearly seven-minute drive to give the Bobcats a 21-7 advantage at the break.
One of Phil Campbell’s three 100-plus-yard rushers Thursday night, Downey finished the contest with 25 rushes for 112 yards.
Following the intermission, Hackleburg and Phil Campbell traded scoring drives to start the second half. After the Panthers cut the visitors’ lead to 21-14, running back Colt Colburn’s 20-yard touchdown rush put PCHS back up two scores.
Colburn later capped the game’s scoring with a 32-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter. The freshman was another of his team’s 100-yard rushers, ending his night with eight touches for 114 yards.
Scott, who finished with 206 yards on 19 carries, added a 10-yard touchdown scamper halfway through the third quarter to give PCHS a 35-21 lead. Early in the fourth quarter, he contributed his final TD of the game on a five-yard pass to sophomore Kamoni Savage.
Offensively, the Bobcats gained 442 yards on the ground, their second-high rushing total this campaign. Defensively, Phil Campbell forced three turnovers and had five fourth-down stops.
“We played very physical, which I was excited to see, and played really well up front. We ran the ball really well and controlled the clock,” Hamilton said. “We flew around on defense, made a few big stops, and shifted momentum our way.
“We trust all of our players to make plays and feel like we’ve put them in good positions to be successful,” he added. “Hayston being explosive (in the run game), tying that with Braxton, getting Colt on the edge was huge for us. And then being able to throw it when we needed to, it was really nice.
“I feel like we’re playing our best ball right now, and I think Thursday night’s game was the best game we’ve played all year. Now we’ve just got to ride that momentum into the playoffs. I told our kids, you know, we just want to pour more gas on the fire. It’s not about how you start, it’s about how you finish. You want to get hot at the right time, and I feel like we’re doing that. It’s exciting to see.”
By earning the region’s two-seed, the Bobcats secured homefield advantage in the opening round of the AHSAA Class 2A postseason. In the first round, Phil Campbell will host Pleasant Valley (8-2), the third seed out of Region 6, at Parrish Stadium on Friday, November 6.
Hamilton told the Franklin Free Press that, from what he’s seen, Pleasant Valley looks and plays a lot like his team.
“They run a similar style of defense to us, and they run a similar style of offense. Their best player is their quarterback, and I feel like our best player is our quarterback. They have a number five that looks identical to Chandler Benford. They have a nose guard that looks almost identical to our nose guard. Their offensive line is a little bit quicker and ours is a little bit bigger. It’s going to be a great game because I feel like we’re playing ‘East Phil Campbell.’” Hamilton said, comparing the two squads.
The Raiders will be a tough out, Hamilton added, but so too will Phil Campbell be at home. Riding the wave of recent success, the Bobcats are confident they can take care of business Friday night and record the program’s first playoff victory in 26 years.
“It’s great for us to get to host it at home—that was one of our goals—but now our goal is to go out and win the game,” Hamilton said.
“It’s going to be a fun, exciting game; at the same time it’s going to be a tough game to win. But we have a lot of belief in ourselves. We’re going to have a great week of practice and get better every day,” he added.
“Pleasant Valley is good, but to get to this point, we know we are, too.”