Saints hold Hillcrest offense in check, still come up short
Published 12:52 am Saturday, September 12, 2015
Selma’s Allen King is stopped for a loss by Chris Finch of Hillcrest Friday night in the third quarter at Hillcrest High School. –Daniel Melograna
By Laura Owns
The Tuscaloosa News
TUSCALOOSA — Selma’s defense put on its best performance of the season Friday, but the offense couldn’t keep up at Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa.
The Saints’ offense was held to just 62 total yards in the Selma (2-2, 0-2) 13-0 loss to the Patriots (2-2, 1-0) in a Class 6A, Region 4 game on Friday night. Selma held Hillcrest running back Brian Robinson to only 124 yards on the ground and a touchdown after he torched No. 1 Clay-Chalkville for 447 yards last week.
“Our team executed to the best of their ability,” Selma head coach Leroy Miles said. “I was very pleased with the way they played. [They showed] the effort and the guts to stick it out in a hostile situation.”
Right as the game was about to kick off, the rain began to fall in sheets. Though Hillcrest had a few offensive miscues, head coach Sam Adams didn’t want to attribute those to the bad weather.
“There’s no such thing as a bad win, so we’re happy to get one in the right column, but I thought we let the circumstances and conditions dictate our play,” Adams said. “That’s disappointing after some of the performances we’ve had earlier in the year.”
He also didn’t want to attribute his team’s slower start to the prior three demanding games.
“I don’t think it’s the three previous games,” he said. “We came into this, we were healthy, we were playing with a lot of confidence. It’s just our level of play was not what it has been.”
The game was scoreless until 40 seconds left in the second quarter when Dean Reynolds made a 28-yard field goal to give Hillcrest a 3-0 lead.
Selma got the ball to start the second half, but after the Patriots’ defense forced a three-and-out series, special teams was able to collect a safety that gave them a 5-0 lead.
Robinson scored the game’s only touchdown with 40 seconds left in the third quarter on a 2-yard run that capped off a 15-play drive.
The Patriots defense kept Selma quarterback Marquell Moorer from completing a single pass.
“We just came up short on offense,” Miles said. “We got close to the goal line several times and just didn’t sneak it in, but our defense played outstanding.”
Selma hosts McAdory next Friday at 7 p.m.
