By CHRIS MEGGINSON / Special to the Reporter

COLUMBIANA – Jamarius Mayfield rushed for another four-touchdown, 200-yard game Friday night to lead Shelby County High School to a 34-24 Homecoming victory over Talladega. The performance pushed Mayfield over the 1,500 yard mark (1,559) for the season, along with 19 touchdowns.

“He’s been our workhorse,” SCHS head coach Heath Childers said. “He’s been a guy we want to get the ball to, and we try a lot of different things. Everybody has little tweaks and defensive adjustments to try to get numbers to where they think he’s going to be running the ball to, and I have to keep coming up with different offensive sets to counter that.”

Oct. 16 wasn’t any different, as Childers continued to use Mayfield in sweeps and counters to attack Wildcats’ opponents, but also abandoned their Wing-T formation for Power I to help Mayfield get his 21 touches and 207 yards, an average of 9.8 yards per carry.

While Mayfield scored SCHS’s last four touchdowns, it was senior Mack Slaughter who first put the Wildcats on the board with at first quarter touchdown run.

The Wildcats took a 14-6 lead in the first quarter, but Talladega bounced back to take an 18-14 lead in the second quarter after a SC fumble. Shelby County regained the lead, 21-18, 20 seconds before halftime.

“We really struggled in the first half defensively. They got some big, long pass plays on us, and we had some breakdowns,” Childers said. “We made some adjustments at halftime, and it worked out for us. The defense played much better in the second half, and that was definitely the difference in the game.”

The Wildcats fumbled on their first play of the second half, but the defense held. Mayfield then hit a 75-yard touchdown run to go up 27-18, and then again to make it 34-18. Talladega tacked on a late third quarter touchdown.

Keyvontae Mayfield joined Jamarius Mayfield as the leading rushers for the Wildcats, collecting 102 of Shelby County’s 348 rushing yards in the game. Slaughter finished with 12 yards and Jacquan Buie had 27 yards.

The win concludes the Wildcats’ Class 5A, Region 3 season with a 2-4 mark to finish fifth in the region, one spot shy of the playoffs. Shelby County (3-6) will have a week off, and then host Tarrant on Oct. 30 for the season finale. Prior to the game, the Wildcats will honor its 16 seniors for Senior Night.