The Selma Times-Journal

It’s a bit hard to say if Keith would be 2-0 had some breaks gone their way.

But the team didn’t give itself a good chance to find out last week.

The Bears (1-1, 0-1 2A Region 1) fumbled the ball six times in their 60-20 loss to Leroy last Friday.

Not many people gave Keith a fighting shot against the No. 2 team in 2A football.

But the Bears learned a few things from the defeat.

“When you walk into a place like Leroy where they love football, you can tell it means something to them,” Keith coach Harry Crum said. “It’s all the way down to the kindergartners. You don’t see a love of football like that on this end. In order to be consistently respectable, you have to have the same love.”

The biggest play of the game for Keith was when William Pasley took a 77-yard screen pass all the way for a touchdown. The Bears took advantage of their overaggressive opponents and burned them.

Other than that, everything was pretty much in favor of Leroy – especially the three onside kicks it recovered.

Red Level (2-0, 1-1) doesn’t cast quite as imposing a shadow, but the Tigers are undefeated and received votes in the latest Alabama Sports Writers Association poll.

“We know they’re going to be tough,” Crum said. “I don’t know that they have as much history, but they have some tradition. They have a little bit of a resume behind them. We’re going to have to play at the top of our game.”

The Tigers will run the ball a lot, using toss sweeps to get their running backs into open space.

When the Bears have been good this season, they’ve been very good. That’s especially true in the passing game.

Quarterback Antonio McCall has completed 8-of-13 passes this year for four touchdowns.

‘That’s very impressive,” Crum said. “Every third or fourth pass is a touchdown. We have to capitalize on that a little bit more.”