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By ALEC ETHEREDGE | Sports Editor 

ALABASTER – It was a night filled with celebration and the fireworks to match as the Thompson Warriors opened play in their brand new state of the art football stadium with a 35-21 victory against Class 7A, Region 3 opponent Oak Mountain on Friday, Sept. 14.

With last week’s loss to No. 2 loss paving the way for a possible let down this week, the Warriors (3-1, 1-1) were hot on offense from the start and continued to show improvement on defense against a difficult team to stop to pull off the bounce-back win.

“Coming off of a loss, with young kids, we didn’t know how we would battle, but we battled back, captured a failure and got some good from it,” head coach Mark Freeman said after the game.

With 1,069 combined yards between the two teams, the scoreboard got its work in on opening night with the two teams moving up-and-down the field, especially in the first half of play.

Of those 1,069 combined yards, the two quarterbacks put together 828 of that total with 321 all-purpose yards from Oak Mountain freshman quarterback Evan Smith, 237 of which came on the ground, and 507 yards coming from the arm of Taulia Tagovailoa.

Oddly enough, with all of that offense, the game started with two fourth-down stands from each defense.

Thompson kept the Eagles (1-2, 0-2) out of the end zone on their first drive after stopping them on the 1-yard line on fourth down for a goal-line stand.

After Oak Mountain returned the favor with a fourth-down stand of its own, the Eagles had a chance to strike first after Smith picked up a 41-yard run, but instead after a few negative plays, the Eagles were forced to punt.

But for the second drive in a row, the Warriors were forced to start on their own 1-yard line.

This, however, is when the offenses woke up.

Tagovailoa went to work in typical Thompson offensive fashion and led the Warriors 99 yards in just three plays. After a lengthy pass play of 70-plus yards to Kyle Smoak, the drive was capped off by an 11-yard touchdown run by Shadrick Byrd to put the Warriors on top 7-0.

This woke Evan Smith and the Oak Mountain offense up, however, as the team was coming off a confident boost against Hewitt-Trussville a week ago where they put up 47 points.

On the ensuing drive, Smith ran for 78 yards on one play before ending the drive with a short touchdown drive to tie the game 7-7 and put him over 100 yards rushing with a touchdown in just three drives for the Eagles.

“Defensively they are a hard, hard team to stop,” Freeman said. “You have about two-and-a-half days to get ready for them, and Cris (Bell) does as good a job with that (option) offense as anybody around. Every time you play them it’s close. We’ve played them four times since I’ve been here and every one of them has been tight.”

After a solid kick return from Thompson’s Andrew Barbour set the Warriors up near midfield, Tagovailoa and the offense didn’t waste the opportunity.

A 22-yard pass to A.J. Bonham followed shortly after by a 16-yard touchdown pass to Michael Pettway on third-and-8, put the Warriors back on top 14-7 early in the second quarter as the third touchdown in the last five minutes had been scored.

Oak Mountain came right back with an answer thanks to the legs of Smith yet again.

A play after a 32-yard run by the quarterback, he pounded in his second touchdown in as many drives from 2 yards out to tie the game again at 14-14.

It didn’t take long at all for the Tagovailoa-Pettway connection to find the end zone again, as less than three minutes later, the Thompson quarterback found his man for a 45-yard touchdown bomb that saw Pettway catch the ball with his back to the end zone, turn, and sprint up field untouched for the score and the lead once again.

That took us to the half, where both quarterbacks already had close to 400 combined yards.

The Warriors offense, however, was clicking and got the ball to start the second half, which didn’t bode well for the Oak Mountain defense.

After a 34-yard pass was negated at one point because of an ineligible man down field, Tagovailao threw a screen pass to Byrd, who took it 45 yards to the house for another Thompson touchdown and a 28-14 lead.

Just like the first half, however, this Oak Mountain offense was at the ready for an answer.

A combined 29 yards from Smith and Jonathan Bennett on the ground followed by a personal foul set the Eagles up in good shape. Shortly after, Smith caught the Thompson defense off guard and floated a beautiful pass to Sam Johnson for a 20-yard touchdown pass to pull Oak Mountain within seven points.

Knowing it was going to be tough to stop Thompson’s offense, the Eagles attempted an onside kick during the ensuing kickoff, but were unable to recover.

Oddly enough, a defensive battle ensued.

Six consecutive drives ended in stops or turnovers, which kept the score from changing for a while.

With 5:45 to play in the game, however, Thompson was able to make the final offensive play that put the game away.

Tagovailoa stepped into the pocket and on a busted coverage found Bonham all by himself for a 44-yard touchdown pass to put the Warriors up by the final score of 35-21.

“We bounced back,” Freeman said. “We worked all week and came out and busted things in the first half, but hats off to my assistant coaches, they got things fixed at the half and came out and did a heck of a job in the second half against their offense.”

Tagovailoa ended the game with 507 yards and four touchdowns on 29-of-39 passing, while Byrd had the other touchdown and ended the game with 143 yards on the ground.

Smoak led all receivers with 162 yards receiving, while Pettway was just behind with 147 yards.

Smith led Oak Mountain with 84 yards passing and one touchdown, as well as 237 yards rushing with two more touchdowns. Luke Percer ran hard as well and posted 74 yards rushing, while Allen had 57 yards receiving.

Thompson will now travel to Tuscaloosa County next week for another region contest, while Oak Mountain ends the tough three-game gauntlet with a matchup against current No. 1 Hoover, who will be coming off a loss to Hewitt-Trussville.

See all images from the game www.shelbycountyphotos.com.

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