Jabe Dawe (11) finds running room against Edgewood
Escambia Academy's Patrick McGhee rushed 40 times for 408 yards and scored six touchdowns to lead the Cougars to a 39-31 victory over Edgewood Academy to send EA to Veterans Memorial Stadium on the campus of Troy University Friday afternoon to defend its AISA Class 2A state title.
Escambia Academy will take on Autauga Academy at 3:30 p.m. in sort of a 'rubber' game between to two AISA powers. EA defeated Autauga in the title game 30-20 last year to win the title and Generals defeated the Cougars 28-21 in the 2016 title game.
"We beat them last year and they beat us the year before," said EA head coach Hugh Fountain. "I guess this is the rubber match."
The Cougars reached the championship game by defeating Coosa Valley Academy 45-0 and last week's 39-31 win over Edgewood.
Autauga is heading to the title game with back-to-back shutouts in the playoffs with a 42-0 win over Patrician Academy and a 42-0 win over South Choctaw Academy.
"They've only had two losses in the past three years and one of those was to us," Fountain said of Autauga Academy. "Obviously they have a good football team."
Fountain said the Generals are led by quarterback Tripp Carr, who became the first AISA quarterback to pass for more than 10,000 yards in his high school career. Carr passed the 10,000 yard mark this past Friday night by passing for 353 yards against South Choctaw.
This past Friday night Fountain said the offensive line did a great job and McGhee had the best single-season game since he's been coaching at Escambia Academy.
"The offensive line did a great job up front," Fountain said. "They couldn't stop Patrick so we kept feeding him the ball."
Escambia Academy opened the scoring in the first quarter on an 18-yard run by McGhee. The PAT failed and the Cougars led 6-0.
McGhee scored on a 5-yard run in the second quarter. A two-point try failed and EA took a 12-0 lead into the lockerroom at the half.
Edgewood scored early in the third quarter on a 2-yard run. The PAT kick was blocked and the Cougars led 12-6.
McGhee scored on a 44-yard run on the first play of the Cougars next possession. Sam Martin added the PAT and EA led 19-6.
Another one-play drive produced a 40-yard touchdown by McGhee and Martin's PAT gave EA a 26-6 lead.
Edgewood scored on an 80-yard run and again the PAT was blocked leaving the score 26-12 in favor of the Cougars.
Edgewood found the end zone again on a 24-yard run and the successful PAT made the score 26-19 heading into the fourth quarter.
McGhee scored on a 5-yard run and the PAT failed to increase the Cougars lead to 32-19.
Edgewood didn't quit and found the end zone from 1-yard out. The PAT was blocked and the Cougars lead was cut to 32-25.
McGhee scored again from 35-yards out and Martin's PAT made the score 39-25.
Edgewood wrapped up the scoring late in the fourth quarter on a 5-yard run. The PAT was again blocked and EA claimed the 39-31 victory.
"It was a huge win for us," Fountain said. "We haven't played Edgewood in a long time. I think the last time was four years ago in a preseason game so we didn't know a lot about them. But we played hard all night."
EA ended the night with 473 yards rushing. Following McGhee, Jabe Dawe had 45 yards on five carries and Jabo Davis had 31 yards on seven carries.
EA did not pick up any yards through the air for a total offensive effort of 473.
Edgewood had 249 yards rushing and 46 yards passing for a total offensive effort of 295 yards.
Davis led the Cougar defense with 13 tackles and Bryant Quimby had 11 tackles.
