Flomaton's reign as the top ranked team in Alabama's Class 3A ended Friday with a 30-26 loss at Bayside Academy but a return trip to the post season and a shot at repeating as state champions is still possible for the Hurricanes.
That road will continue this Friday night when Flomaton hosts Mobile Christian in another key regional matchup.
“It's disappointing,” said Flomaton head coach Doug Vickery. “Bayside is always a tough place to play. They have a great coaching staff and their offense can sometimes give you fits. They seem to always find a way to move the football.”
He said while not taking anything away from Bayside, he felt Flomaton played its worse game of the season.
“As a team, it was probably our worse game,” Vickery said. “We made too many mistakes, mental errors and errors on special teams. But that's on me. I didn't do a good job getting them ready for that environment.”
There's no time to dwell on the loss with Mobile Christian coming to town and Coach Vickery said his team has put the loss behind them.
“We've had a good week of practice so far this week,” Vickery said Wednesday morning. “Mobile Christian has a good football team. Don't look at their record because their three losses are against bigger schools that will all win their regions or districts.”
Vickery said it will be good to come back home.
“We've always played good at home,” he said. “We've always been competitive at home and our kids play hard in front of a big home crowd.”
Flomaton struck first Friday night on a 76-yard touchdown run by Daquan Johnson. A two-point try failed, but with 6:29 left in the first quarter, Flomaton led 6-0.
Bayside answered on a 7-yard touchdown run and a PAT to take a 7-6 lead with 4:12 left in the half.
Zachary Kittrell got free on a 51-yard touchdown run for the Admirals with 3:54 left in the first quarter and the PAT gave Bayside a 14-6 head.
With 5:00 left in the second quarter, Johnson scored on a 45-yard run. The two-point try failed and Flomaton trailed 14-12 at the half.
Bayside would stretch its lead to 21-12 with 8:08 left in the third quarter on an 18-yard pass and successful PAT.
The Hurricanes stormed back with Travon Brown scoring on a 43-yard run with 5:45 left in the third. The two-point try was no good and Bayside's lead was cut to 21-18.
Flomaton would take the lead with 3:09 left in the third on Johnson's 44-yard run, followed by Johnson taking the two-point try into the end zone to give Flomaton a 26-21 lead.
Bayside cut the lead to 26-24 on a 32-yard field goal with 8:23 left in the game and then recovered an onsides kick to set up a 48-yard touchdown pass with 8:10 left in the game. The two-point try failed, but Bayside took a 30-26 lead, which is how the game ended.
Flomaton ran the ball 32 times for 325 yards with Johnson picking up 148 yards on 10 carries. Flomaton attempted three passes for negative 10 yards and an interception for a total offensive effort of 315 yards.
Bayside rushed 38 times for 185 yards and hit on seven of 16 passes for 109 yards for a total offensive effort of 294.
