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By ZACH SIMONSON | Special to the Reporter

BROOKWOOD – The Calera Eagles played spoiler for the Brookwood Panthers’ homecoming as they secured their second win of the season by a score of 35-14 on Oct. 4 at Brookwood High School.

“It’s big anytime you win, no matter how you play or how things work,” Calera coach Scott Rials said. “If you can get that ‘W,’ that’s important, and then it’s good for our program. Our kids have worked hard, so we needed to get one, and we’re very proud to get it.”

This win was capitalized by a massive second half effort by the Eagles. Calera scored 21 unanswered points after a 14-14 start in the first quarter.

Brookwood’s ground-and-pound offense was able to keep the score close in the beginning, but ultimately Calera’s offense broke through.

While the Panthers struck first to go up 7-0, the Eagles responded soon after. Jordan Henderson broke through the line and sprinted down the right sideline, juking a defender at the end zone to finish off the 28-yard touchdown and tie the game at 7-7.

Brookwood then embarked on a lengthy drive and capped it off with a 3-yard touchdown run to retake the 14-7 lead, putting the pressure back on Calera.

That proved to be the Panthers’ final points of the night as the Eagles tied up the game with a bang.

In the second quarter, AJ Johnson launched a ball from 61 yards out to Braxton Brooks, who made his man run out of bounds and took care of the rest to knot up the score at 14-14.

Demetrius Davis then ran the ball into the end zone from inside the 10-yard line to give the Eagles a 21-14 lead going into the half, and they would not relinquish the lead from there.

Johnson got the scoring started in the third quarter in a big way. After rolling to his left at the 38-yard line, he sent a perfect ball for Brooks to leap in coverage at the 5-yard line, grab it and take it for their second score of the night.

While that made the score 28-14, Calera was not finished. After driving to the 13-yard line, Johnson found KD Young crossing in front of him, and Young finished off the touchdown to put the finishing touches on the 35-14 win.

After the game, Rials said that a big key to the comeback was getting off the field on defense without allowing any points after adjusting to Brookwood’s possession-oriented offense.

“After the first few drives, we started getting some defensive stops. That was huge and we pretty much shut them down,” Rials said. “They were milking the clock down to the last second, running plays and so it was a little bit frustrating. We couldn’t get the ball. So, we hung tough and made some good defensive adjustments, got in there and pretty much stuffed them the rest of the game after the first little bit there.”

Despite the win, Rials feels like his team didn’t play to the best of their abilities and has a ways to go before reaching its full potential.

“We really feel like that we haven’t played our best ball and we’re not even close,” Rials said. “We’ve just got a lot of work still to do, so on really a positive side, we’ve done some good things and I’m proud of that, but we leave a lot on the field that we really could do. So, if we can ever just put that full game together, I think you can really see a team that can really take off.”

He particularly pointed to mistakes on the offense, but he also gave props to them for continuing to play hard and push the team to victory.

“Offensively, we had some good drives, but we didn’t play up to our abilities on the offensive side,” Rials said. “We had several drops and some things that didn’t go really our way, but I give our guys a lot of credit. They hung tough and kept playing and we’re glad to get a win.”

It was a balanced attack on offense for Calera. Johnson finished the game 16-for-31 for 285 yards and three touchdowns along with an additional 45 yards on the ground.

Senior wide receiver Braxton Brooks was the recipient of two of those touchdowns and had 125 yards off three catches, and fellow senior wideout KD Young caught a touchdown as well as he went for 57 yards off four catches.

Jaylon Moore caught four balls for 55 yards and Elijah Bates took four receptions for 48 yards.

Overall, it was a dominant performance on offense for the Eagles with 285 yards of offense through the air as well as 170 on the ground.

It was a joint effort in the backfield tonight with Davis rushing for 53 yards and a touchdown and Henderson contributing 35 yards and a score to add to Johnson’s 45 yards.

The Eagles are now 2-4 overall with four games remaining in the regular season. Next Friday they will take on Chilton County at home who are 2-4 as well.