FOLEY — The Pride of the Blue and Gold trophy is staying in Foley for another year after senior Kolton Nero’s second rushing touchdown gave the Lions a 21-17 lead over the rival Fairhope Pirates with only 6:06 left at Ivan Jones Stadium Thursday night.
The Foley defense stepped up down the stretch and secured the win with a forced fumble in the final minute to complete the comeback after Fairhope took a 17-14 lead on a 29-yard field goal from senior Campbell MacKellar with 3:37 left in the third quarter.
“Defense really stood up in the second half tonight and I’m so proud of what they did,” Lion head coach Deric Scott said. “The word for us this week was ‘Respond,’ after that outing last week so it was really about responding. It took a lot of character, a lot of gall, a lot of guts to comeback and play like that, I’m so happy for those guys.”
Passing attack opened up ground-bound efforts
Nero said the Foley offense took advantage of what the Pirate defense provided and that led to the aerial and ground assaults complementing each other. The senior finished with 134 rushing yards on 27 carries with the two touchdowns.
“We were running it, and they know — everyone knows — we have a good running game, but once you open up our passing game, we open up the field and we can see everything,” Nero said. “And if you open up the passing game, you open up the running game so that’s all we had to do just get back on our throwing. Our quarterback executed some nice balls, Perry Thompson came up big and that’s all we had to do.”
Thompson electrifies with 93-yard touchdown
Thompson, a senior and Auburn commit, scored the other touchdown for the hosts after he made a catch in space and found himself in the open field with nobody to stop a 93-yard touchdown catch from sophomore Nelson Thompson. The receiver caught five passes on the night for 116 receiving yards and the quarterback completed 10 passes for 184 yards.
“I saw the cornerback was in man and we as an offense wanted to take advantage, so coach told me to hit them with a post-corner. I hit the post, made him look in then went back to the corner and when I caught it, I knew I was gone,” Thompson said. “I looked back and he tried to tackle me but I slung him off me and that was all she wrote. I was just going; I heard our crowd then Fairhope was booing so I had to put the deuces up.”
Scott spoke highly of both of Thursday’s touchdown scorers who also serve leadership roles on the team.
“Same as always, (Kolton is) a tough one. He’s going to get his; he’s going to run downhill, he’s going to do the things we need him to do to win. He’s a tough guy and we love him for it,” Scott said. “Perry did what Perry does: go out there and do what we ask him to do. He’s going to do whatever he can to help the team win and you can’t ask for a better player or a better teammate.”
Godfrey grabs pair of rushing scores
Fairhope senior running back Preston Godfrey scored both of the visitors’ touchdowns on the ground in the first two quarters.
The opener came just three plays after Foley’s first score after a big punt return and a penalty led the Pirates to the red zone. Godfrey’s second answered Thompson’s long touchdown catch to send the game to halftime with a 14-14 tie.
Davis' interception nearly brought Pirates back
The Lions were making a game-sealing drive in the final minutes of regulation and were nearing the red zone when Fairhope senior Dixon Davis stole an interception and returned it to the Foley 36-yard line with only 2:21 left in regulation.
However, the Lion defense came up with one final stop, the one they needed the most to come out on top of the Pirates.
“I saw the tenacity to win, that tenacity to play and go get what you want,” Scott said. “Go get that win and they did it, I’m happy for them.”
Lions celebrate with trophy, fans
From there, Foley celebrated a win in the 101st rivalry meeting with Fairhope.
“It was great,” Nero said of the trophy celebration in front of the student section. “Just the student body, everybody coming together; that’s Fole-town man.”
“We had to keep the trophy over here,” Thompson said with a smile.
Up next
The Lions improved to 3-3 overall and 1-2 within Class 7A Region 1. Foley is set for another home game next week against the Alma-Bryant Hurricanes (2-3, 0-2).
The Pirates fell to 1-5 overall and 0-3 in region play. Fairhope will return home next week for another rivalry matchup, this one against the Daphne Trojans (4-3, 3-1).
Money quotes
“A rivalry win is always at the top; we’re always going to take,” Scott said. “Just get better, we responded out there so now let’s go be consistent.”
“We weren’t clicking together coming off the loss but once we came back and all got on the same page you see it,” Nero said. “That fourth quarter, we came together and ended up scoring on a big drive to give us the lead and that’s all we do is come together.”
“A hard-fought battle, earlier they put some stuff on Instagram so they made it personal and we made it personal too,” Thompson said. “This win is very big to get the team back and motivated after an 0-3 run so getting that win puts us back on the right track.”
