Special teams decided Alma Bryant’s homecoming game Thursday night, just not in the direction the Hurricanes expected. Foley beat Alma Bryant 28-26 in a Class 6A, Region 1 contest by blocking a field goal, blocking an extra point and intercepting a pass on a 2-point attempt, turning the kicking game into the margin in a two-point loss for the hosts.
The night had opened in the Hurricanes’ favor. Anthony Sturgis took the opening kickoff 86 yards for a touchdown, an immediate suggestion that special teams would swing the game. It did. Foley simply took possession of that storyline and never gave it back, adding a fumble recovery in the end zone and an interception in the end zone to a night full of plays that never showed up in a box score as points.
Across the state line in Pensacola, Class 4A No. 1-ranked Williamson survived a late Pine Forest push to win 19-18, running its record to 3-0 and stretching its regular season winning streak to 13 games.
Foley 28, Alma Bryant 26
Alma Bryant coach Bart Sessions did not look for a complicated explanation afterward.
“You can’t have special teams miscues. The game would have looked very different if we had finished drives and capitalized. But we didn’t and they did.”
Down 7-0 after the return, Foley answered with 21 unanswered points. The run began with a block: Jatavius Jacobs got through to stop a 29-yard field goal attempt that would have pushed Alma Bryant’s lead to 10-0.
From there the Lions found the end zone three times. Bryson Garcia scored from a yard out, Jaxson Dixon broke free for a 39-yard touchdown run, and Garcia added an 11-yard scoring run. The last of those came after Alma Bryant fumbled into the end zone on a 20-yard run that would otherwise have given the Hurricanes first-and-goal.
Foley led 28-19 through three quarters, but the Hurricanes had not finished. On the fourth play of the fourth quarter, Alma Bryant drove into scoring position and appeared poised to make it a one-score game. Jacobs, already responsible for the blocked field goal, made an acrobatic interception in the end zone to end the possession.
The Hurricanes got the ball back and did reach the end zone, cutting the deficit to 28-26 with 3:56 remaining. Their defense then held, handing the offense the ball at its own 26 with 51 seconds on the clock. Alma Bryant moved quickly to the Foley 44 before an intentional grounding penalty stalled the drive. On fourth down, on the final play of the game, Jayvion Stowe brought down the quarterback for the clinching sack.
The Play That Decided It
Jacobs blocked a field goal that would have made it 10-0, but his end zone interception in the fourth quarter mattered more. He described it simply.
“I saw him rolling out and I just had to go get that ball. It was over my head, but I had to go get it and save one for my team.”
Foley coach Bryan Moore smiled when the play came up, and his answer was less about the catch than about the effort that preceded it.
“We let the guy get behind us. He knew he made a mistake but he made a great effort and I was proud of that.”
That is a coach describing a defense that broke down and then recovered, which is a reasonable summary of the whole evening for the Lions. Foley did not shut Alma Bryant down. It simply produced a decisive play on nearly every possession where one was available.
Alma Bryant Ran the Ball and Still Lost
The most striking number of the night belonged to the losing team. Alma Bryant piled up 367 yards on the ground, with Sturgis carrying 24 times for 172 yards to lead the way.
Rushing for 367 yards and losing by two points is the kind of stat line that keeps a coaching staff up on a Thursday night. It means the offense functioned, the line moved people and the game plan worked — and that the points did not follow. That is precisely what Sessions was describing.
“We left 20 points on the field. That’s hard for me to stomach in a two-point ballgame.”
Add it up and the arithmetic is brutal: a blocked field goal, a blocked extra point, a failed 2-point conversion intercepted, a fumble lost in the end zone and a pass intercepted in the end zone. Five scoring opportunities that produced nothing. Any one of them going the other way changes the final score.
Dixon and a Program Still Under Construction
Jaxson Dixon had the kind of night that gets remembered — a 39-yard touchdown run and a 52-yard catch and run — and his postgame reaction stayed focused on the result.
“I just love how we came out here and got the W.”
Moore, for his part, offered one of the more evocative descriptions of a coach’s job in a rebuilding season.
“I feel like I’m holding wet sand in my hands sometimes. But the kids are working and the culture is forming.”
The image does a lot of work. Wet sand holds its shape only as long as you keep your hands closed around it, and a team that wins by blocking kicks and intercepting passes in the end zone is a team getting maximum value from effort while the rest is still being built. Foley moved to 2-2 with the win.
What a Class 6A Region Game Means
The Foley-Alma Bryant result carries weight beyond the win column. The Alabama High School Athletic Association sorts its member schools into classifications by enrollment, from 1A through 7A, and then divides each classification into regions built largely around geography. Region games determine playoff qualification, with the top finishers in each region advancing to the state playoffs.
That structure is why a nonregion loss and a region loss are not equivalent. Nonregion games shape a team’s record and its confidence; region games shape its November. For two south Mobile County and Baldwin County programs sitting in Class 6A, Region 1, a two-point margin in September can determine seeding — or eligibility — two months later.
Homecoming adds its own weight, and Thursday night was Alma Bryant’s. Losing on that particular Thursday, having outrushed the opponent by a wide margin, is a difficult combination.
Williamson 19, Pine Forest 18
Williamson’s trip to Pensacola produced a similarly narrow result and a similar theme: the Lions won a game they did not dominate.
Jordan Jackson rushed for two touchdowns, including the go-ahead 25-yard run with 4:12 remaining that put Williamson up 19-12. Pine Forest answered with Jacori Thomas’ 4-yard touchdown run, but the 2-point conversion attempt failed and the Lions escaped 19-18.
Coach Antonio Coleman was blunt about the performance and content with the outcome.
“We didn’t play our best ball, but at the end of the day, we are in the win column once again.”
Jackson finished with 114 yards on nine carries and opened the scoring on a 13-yard run on Williamson’s first drive of the game. Nathaniel Mitchell added 101 yards on 21 carries and a 10-yard touchdown run that put the Lions ahead 12-0.
Pine Forest scored twice in the second quarter to tie the game 12-12 at halftime. From that point, Williamson’s defense held the Eagles to a single first down until the final drive.
“Bend but don’t break. We helped them out with a couple penalties on the touchdown drive, but were able to make a stop when it counted on the 2-point conversion.”
That stop was the game. After Pine Forest closed to 19-18, the Eagles elected to go for two and the win rather than kick for a tie. Kenneth Brooks came in unblocked, forcing Thomas to rush the throw, and the pass fell incomplete.
By the Numbers for Williamson
- 2021 — the last regular season road loss for Williamson
- 2024 — the last time the Lions have allowed a touchdown on the road
- 2 — turnovers committed by Williamson in the game
- 13 — the length of Williamson’s regular season winning streak
Coleman credited the line for the ground production, which accounted for the bulk of the Lions’ offense.
“We’ve got four returning starters on the offensive line. I knew we could get it done running the ball. Hats off to our backs.”
Williamson defensive back Captain Munnerlyn Jr. saw the value in surviving a close one against an out-of-state opponent.
“This close win will help us down the road. Playing a team out of state adds something a little extra motivation for us.”
Out-of-state scheduling has become common for strong Alabama programs, particularly along the Gulf Coast, where Mobile sits close enough to the Florida Panhandle that a Pensacola road game is a shorter trip than many in-state matchups. The competition is unfamiliar, the crowd is hostile and the result does not affect region standings — which makes it a useful gauge without a playoff cost.
What’s Next
Foley (2-2) returns home next week to face Baker. The Lions are 1-0 at home this season, having already beaten Spanish Fort there.
Alma Bryant (1-3) will take on Mary G. Montgomery as it looks to recover from a homecoming loss in which the offense produced 367 rushing yards and the special teams produced the margin of defeat.
Williamson (3-0) plays at Satsuma, with the No. 1 ranking in Class 4A and a 13-game regular season winning streak riding along.