The bad news: The Apalachee High School team was not at its best Friday night against Cedar Shoals.
The good news: The Wildcats still managed to scrape out a 12-6 win overcoming mistakes, penalties and a sluggish offensive performance. The end result is a 2-0 start to the 2009 season as coach Shane Davis’ team enters its bye week.
“With all that went on, we are still 2-0,” Davis said. “Our kids still showed poise, character and heart. We found a way to win. It was survival mode for a while. Our defense played extremely well.”
The storyline going into the 8-AAAA matchup was whether the front line of the Cedar Shoals defense would be able to stop Apalachee’s stable of strong running backs. While the Jaguars did have success in slowing down the Wildcats, Davis knows his team helped slow itself down.
“We certainly didn’t help ourselves,” the coach said. “Penalties really hurt us. Sometimes you have to win ugly and we did on Friday.”
AHS struck first on a 65-yard run from John Ansley with 3:58 left in the opening quarter. The point after attempt was no good leaving the score at 6-0.
The lead was pushed to 12-0 on a 29-yard scoring run from Reggie Battle with 5:16 left in the first half. The Wildcats went for two points this time but were unable to convert.
Cedar Shoals put its lone touchdown on the board a little more than two minutes later to cut the lead to 12-6. That would be all the scoring for either team as both defenses settled in and took control.
While his team struggled with penalties and other elements, Davis also credited the Jaguars.
“They were strong, especially up front in their 5-3,” the coach said. “They play with almost eight in the box. They are awfully strong. that was a part of it. Another part was we had 11 penalties. When we have so many penalties like we did Friday, it kills your offensive momentum. We aren’t able to continue running our offense because we end up giving the football back to them.”
Davis said some penalties he can live with, but ones such as lining up right and jumping offsides will not be tolerated.
“When you are playing a team like Cedar, you can’t have penalties like we did,” the coach said. “You want to keep your offense on the field to limit what they can do as much as possible.”
While the season is still young, AHS is currently tied for first in the region standings with a 2-0 record. Clarke Central and Salem are also 2-0 at this point.
The Apalachee High School Wildcats will host No. 9 Clarke Central Sept. 18.
