By CHRIS MEGGINSON / For the Reporter

HUEYTOWN – As time ticked down Friday night, Briarwood Christian head coach Fred Yancey said he flashed back to the 2007 Class 5A state championship game at Legion Field. Hueytown kicker Blair Hagood was positioning himself for a potential game-tying 27-yard field goal with 10 seconds to play. The chances of a blocked kick to win the game were familiar to Yancey as he replayed Matthew Gordon’s blocked extra point in 2007 with 10 seconds to play, a kick which would have forced overtime against Spanish Fort.

“It was panic city,” Yancey said. “It was a fire drill going on right before our eyes … We knew we have a good chance to block this thing.”

And Sam Sherrod did, breaking through the middle of the line to clinch Briarwood’s first win of the season, 13-10, in a Class 6A, Region 5 battle against the Hueytown Golden Gophers.

The win, which was broadcast live as the WABM My68’s Friday Night Rivals Game of the Week, snapped Briarwood’s five game losing streak dating back to last October and avoided the program’s first 0-4 start since 1992.

“The biggest thing is it’s a win to reward kids who have been faithful to keep working,” Yancey said. “We lost our first two games by a touchdown or less. We hated losing those close games. Tonight, they came out and punched us right in the nose … It ran through my mind ‘we’re fixing to get run out of this place,’ but our defense finally throttled them and our offense kept working hard. Our defensive coaches and defensive player are to be commended for raising their level of play.”

Hueytown (1-4) was looking to avenge last season’s 14-7 loss in the first-ever official meeting between the two programs. The Golden Gophers took an early 10-0 lead with a 21-yard field goal by Hagood and short touchdown run by Roderick Madden.

Hueytown out-gained the Lions 297 to 241 yards on the night, led by Madden, who accounted for 129 of the Golden Gophers’ 210 rushing yards.

The Lions’ defense helped give new life to Briarwood in the second quarter when Champ Stewart recovered a fumble that sparked their first scoring drive. BCS quarterback William Gray punched in the Lions first touchdown with a short run to make it 10-6 at the half.

Briarwood shut out the Golden Gophers in the second half, helped greatly by a Bradford Patillo interception at the goal line in the third quarter.

“Had they punched it in then, it may have been the ball game,” Yancey said.

Following the interception, Gray helped orchestrate the Lions’ go-ahead play with an 80-yard bomb to Luke Dyson on a fake pick play designed by assistant coaches Mike Sanders and Bobby Kerley.

“It wasn’t an official play for us, but we knew we had it in our hip pocket … We really didn’t have enough speed to out-run them,” Yancey said. “I’ve never seen Luke Dyson run that fast in his life. He was cooking it to make the touchdown.”
Gray finished the game 16-of-24 for 171 yards passing. The Lions added 70 yards on the ground.

Briarwood had a chance to run the clock out, but a hard Hueytown hit forced a fumble with 3:05 to play. The Hueytown drive was later kept alive on a fourth-down pass interference call to help set up the late field goal try.

Briarwood (1-4) returns home Friday, Sept. 25 to host Oak Mountain in a non-region game.