The Phil Campbell High School varsity football team (5-3, 5-1 Class 2A Region 7) earned its fifth-consecutive win Friday night, besting Sheffield in a high-scoring 62-42 affair. The 104 total points scored in the game were just shy of the record 107 combined points scored in a game involving Phil Campbell, set in 2015.
Phil Campbell and Sheffield traded scores to start the contest, but the Bobcats started to pull away in the second quarter, taking a 28-point lead into halftime.
PCHS junior running back Braxton Downey, one of four Bobcats to score rushing touchdowns, opened the scoring in the first quarter with a 37-yard touchdown run to give his team an initial 6-0 advantage.
Sheffield answered with a touchdown rush of its own and took a narrow 7-6 lead, but it would be short-lived—it was the first and last time the Bobcats trailed in the game.
Two more long rushing touchdowns from Phil Campbell—a 60-yarder by senior quarterback Hayston Scott and a 64-yarder by freshman Colt Colburn—put the Bobcats up 20-7 at the end of the first period of play.
Then, in the second quarter, PCHS would outscore Sheffield 28-13 to take a 48-20 lead into the intermission. Scott, who finished the game with a season-high five passing touchdowns, threw his first of the game to fellow senior Austin Elliott for a 16-yard score with 11 minutes to play before the break. Scott and Elliott linked up again on the Bobcats’ next touchdown, a 31-yarder that put the hosts up 34-14.
Later in the second, Scott found senior Cody Sneed for an 11-yard touchdown reception, Sneed’s first offensive score of the year. That gave the Bobcats a 42-20 advantage after the successful two-point conversion.
Phil Campbell’s final touchdown of the first half was scored with less than a minute left when Scott hit senior Chandler Benford on a long, 52-yard pass, his fourth passing touchdown of the game.
Up 28 points in the second half, Phil Campbell continued to deal damage to the visiting Bulldogs but did so more on the ground in the remaining 24 minutes. The Bobcats’ lone score in the third quarter came via a one-yard touchdown run by senior Shooter Motes to make it a 54-20 game.
In the fourth quarter, Sheffield scored 22 unanswered points, but it wasn’t enough to catch back up to the Bobcats. Phil Campbell’s final score of the game with just over two minutes remaining, a 33-yard touchdown pass from Scott to Motes, sealed the 20-point victory for the home team.
As a team, Phil Campbell recorded 20 first downs and finished with 572 yards of total offense thanks to a fairly balanced 311 yards rushing and 261 yards through the air.
The quarterback Scott finished with 240 yards passing on the night, his best total since throwing for 264 yards against rival Red Bay on the opening weekend of the season. He also led the team in rushing with 174 yards on the ground. Elliott led the team in receptions with five for 94 yards.
The region win over Sheffield puts the Bobcats at 5-1 in Region 7, tied with Colbert County and Lexington. Phil Campbell holds the tiebreaker over Colbert County, but Lexington has the advantage over PCHS.
Phil Campbell travels to Falkville for its final region contest of the season on October 23. With Phil Campbell, Colbert County and Lexington all playing their region finales the same night, the race for the Region 7 title and home field advantage in round one of the playoffs will be determined by the outcome of those respective games.