Flomaton led with a quarter to play. Opp scored the last two touchdowns of the night and left with the win.
The fourth-ranked Bobcats beat No. 8 Flomaton 28-20 on Friday in Class 3A, Region 1 action, taking control in the final period after trailing 20-13 late in the third.
A Tight First Half
The game was close from the start and low-scoring through two quarters, with Flomaton holding a 7-6 halftime lead. Neither team had separated.
Flomaton Strikes First After the Break
The Hurricanes got the second-half scoring going with a 55-yard run from Tobias Hall. The point-after attempt was no good, leaving Flomaton ahead 13-6.
Opp countered on its next offensive possession, with junior quarterback Parker Burgess scoring on a 3-yard touchdown run. With a good point-after, the Bobcats tied it at 13 with 6:34 left in the third quarter.
Flomaton answered quickly. Caden Chancery hauled in a long reception on the next series, and Jaylen Phifer took it in from 12 yards out with three minutes left in the third. The point-after was good and the Hurricanes led 20-13.
The Turn
Flomaton stopped a big pass play with less than three minutes remaining in the third, but Opp drove the field and reached the 3-yard line as the quarter ended.
Burgess answered with a 3-yard scoring run 11:54 into the fourth. He then converted the two-point attempt, and Opp led 21-20 — the Bobcats’ first lead since the opening half.
The two-point call is the decision the game turned on. Kicking the extra point would have tied it at 20. Going for two put Opp ahead by one and forced Flomaton to score rather than merely match.
Flomaton drove the ball in response, but the Bobcats got a stop on fourth down with less than six minutes remaining. Burgess then scored on a 1-yard run, and Opp held on late.
Burgess Carried It
The junior quarterback accounted for all three Opp touchdowns in the second half plus the two-point conversion — 20 of the Bobcats’ 28 points, all of them on the ground, and all three scores from inside the 5.
Short-yardage quarterback running is one of the harder things to defend in high school football. A quarterback keeper near the goal line adds a blocker relative to a handoff and forces a defense to account for a runner who was, an instant earlier, a passer. Opp went back to it three times and got in three times.
Two Ranked Teams, One Region
The matchup pitted No. 4 against No. 8 in Class 3A, which raises the stakes considerably in a classification where region records determine playoff seeding.
Region games in Alabama’s smaller classifications carry disproportionate weight because regions are compact and schedules leave little room for recovery. A head-to-head result between two ranked region opponents can settle a seeding question that shapes the entire postseason path — home field in the first round, and which side of a bracket a team lands on.
For Opp, beating a ranked region rival on the road establishes early control. For Flomaton, a one-score loss in which the Hurricanes led in the fourth quarter is the kind of result that leaves a team believing it belongs without giving it anything in the standings.
Flomaton’s Night in the Numbers
The Hurricanes generated explosive plays: Hall’s 55-yard run, Chancery’s long reception setting up Phifer’s 12-yard score. What they did not do was finish with points on the final possessions.
The missed extra point after Hall’s touchdown also loomed. Had it been good, Flomaton would have led 14-6, and the arithmetic of the rest of the night changes — including whether Opp’s two-point conversion would have produced a lead at all. Kicking games decide a great many small-classification football games, and this was one where the margin traced back to it.
Up Next
Flomaton hosts T.R. Miller on Friday, Sept. 11, in region action.
That is another significant region test. T.R. Miller, based in Brewton, is one of the more established programs in the area, and the Escambia County matchup carries its own history. For a Flomaton team that just lost a game it led entering the fourth quarter, a home region date the following week offers an immediate chance to reset the standings picture.