Saraland’s football program gave fans an early look at what could be another dominant season, as the defending Class 6A state champions cruised to a 35-7 spring game win over Enterprise on Thursday night, with the Spartans’ starters controlling the first half 21-0.
The win carried extra weight given the opponent. Enterprise advanced two rounds into the Class 7A playoffs last season and finished 8-4, making it far from a pushover for a Saraland team that some worried could ease off the gas after last year’s title run. Instead, coach Jeff Kelly’s squad delivered a statement performance on both sides of the ball.
Saraland’s offense produced despite missing five-star receiver Ryan Williams, the state’s first sophomore to be named Mr. Football, who watched from the sideline while recovering from a hamstring strain. In his place, four-star quarterback K.J. Lacey shouldered the load, rushing for a touchdown and completing 10 of 14 passes for 86 yards and two more scores in one half of work. Running back Santae McWilliams, who has drawn a scholarship offer from Stanford, added 74 yards on 11 carries.
“K.J. did a good job moving the ball around and finding guys,” Kelly said. “Santae got some good runs in. He looks faster.”
Lacey found the end zone through the air on a 15-yard touchdown pass to Myron Dunklin and a 3-yard score to Kingston Bush, in addition to his 1-yard rushing touchdown.
Defensively, Saraland was just as impressive, holding Enterprise’s starters to only 43 yards and five first downs, including a mere 37 yards on the ground. Noseguard Antonio Coleman, who holds offers from Alabama, Tennessee, Penn State and North Carolina State, said the group has developed a mentality built for a title defense.
“We’ve got guys who have been here two years, three years now, and we know what it takes,” Coleman said. “Our defense has developed the mentality to kill.”
Linebacker Jamison Curtis, last season’s leading tackler and one of 10 returning defensive starters, echoed that confidence. “We’ve got a lot of guys back and we know our responsibilities and we just played fast,” Curtis said. “We want to repeat and I think we’ve got the guys to do it.”
Kelly said the eight days of spring scrimmaging leading up to the game helped sharpen his team’s approach. “You want to be the defense nobody wants to play,” he said. “We scrimmaged against those suckers for eight days this spring and I know the guys we have offensively and I know the struggles we had against our defense.”
Defensive coordinator Brett West said he was eager to review film from the outing. “In the spring, you want to see who is going to swarm and be physical and not shy away from contact,” West said. “I think when we cut the film on tomorrow, we’ll see a lot of red jerseys around the football.”
Kelly said the game offered a valuable look at how his offense could function without its biggest playmaker. “Offensively, we operated pretty well and we did it without the best player in the state,” Kelly said. “We had to put drives together without him. He wanted to play but it was the right thing for him not to play. It will make us better in the long run.”
For his part, Williams said he is rehabilitating twice daily and feels close to full health, even though he couldn’t resist slamming a football over the goalpost during pregame warmups. “Right now, I feel 100 percent,” Williams said. “That’s a good sign. But I need more rehab so I can be sure. I wish I was out there. But I’m excited to know without me we can still make some plays.”
Despite the lopsided score, Kelly cautioned there is still work to do before the regular season. “But there is plenty to improve on,” he said. “We missed a couple of opportunities offensively. We had two drives we didn’t score on, one where we didn’t block up a base run and another where we didn’t protect. That gives us plenty to work on.”