MOBILE — St. Paul’s lost its starting quarterback in the first quarter, found a replacement who ran for four touchdowns, built an 18-point lead in the third, and still walked off E.E. Delaney Stadium on the wrong end of a 39-35 score.
St. Michael Catholic scored the winning touchdown with 1:09 left on Friday night. Elsewhere across the region, Spanish Fort’s defense produced a second consecutive shutout, and Clarke County extended one of the longest active region winning streaks in Alabama high school football to 30 games.
St. Michael 39, St. Paul’s 35
The story of the night at Delaney Stadium was a sophomore-level improvisation that nearly worked.
Roberts Law stepped in for injured quarterback Hayden Fincher with just under four minutes left in the first quarter. Law gained 108 yards on 15 carries and scored four touchdowns for the Saints, who fell to 2-3 overall and 1-2 in Class AA Region 1. His touchdown runs covered 1 yard, 2 yards, 6 yards and 2 yards — a short-yardage collection that reflects a team moving the ball consistently and cashing in near the goal line.
The Saints also got a heavy workload from Ty Sellers, who rushed 18 times for 129 yards and a touchdown before leaving the game late in the third quarter with an apparent leg injury.
Law’s fourth touchdown of the night put St. Paul’s up 35-17 early in the third quarter. From there the game turned.
How the Cardinals Came Back
St. Michael (1-3, 1-2) got three touchdowns from Brayden Walton, including a 66-yard score on a reverse, a 17-yard touchdown reception and, finally, a 7-yard touchdown pass with 1:09 left in the game.
Nygel Mitchell carried 22 times for 170 yards and two touchdowns, one of them a 73-yard run. Marshall Pitre, playing in place of injured quarterback Gunner Rivers, went 21-of-32 for 174 yards and three touchdowns.
Read those numbers together and the comeback makes sense. Mitchell’s 170 yards on the ground kept St. Michael’s offense ahead of schedule, and Pitre’s 21 completions spread across 32 attempts gave the Cardinals a possession-by-possession passing game rather than a handful of low-percentage shots.
Both teams, notably, were playing with backup quarterbacks. Fincher went out in the first quarter for St. Paul’s; Rivers was already unavailable for St. Michael. Two backups combined for seven passing and rushing touchdowns between them.
What the Saints’ Coach Saw
St. Paul’s coach Ham Barnett did not dress up the result, but he was direct about where the game was lost and what he took from it.
“We lost that game in the fourth quarter but our kids played with a lot of heart and played really hard,” Barnett said.
He also explained the decision that produced Law’s night — a package the Saints had not practiced with him.
“We never worked on (the Wildcat) with Roberts, so we put him out there,” Barnett said. “It was something we ran in the past a few years ago but he really did a great job tonight. He hit the holes and gave them a lot of problems. Our kids gave a lot of effort. I hate to lose but there were a lot of bright spots. Hopefully, this will help our team grow.”
Pulling a Wildcat package off the shelf mid-game, with a quarterback who had never repped it, and getting 108 yards and four touchdowns out of it is an unusual in-game adjustment. It is also a reminder of how quickly a high school season can turn on one injury — and how much depends on whether the next player up can do anything at all.
Spanish Fort 16, Blount 0
J.J. Thibodeaux tossed a touchdown pass and the Toros’ defense collected its second consecutive shutout.
Spanish Fort’s defense forced a safety in the second quarter, and Thibodeaux connected with Devin McKenzie for a 54-yard touchdown on the following drive to put the Toros up 9-0 at halftime.
Ya’Lin Lee’s 26-yard touchdown run with 1:08 left iced the game for Spanish Fort, which improved to 4-1 overall and 3-0 in Class 5A Region 1.
Keevaughan Johnson rushed for 94 yards on 23 carries for the Leopards, who fell to 2-3 overall and 1-2 in region play.
Two shutouts in consecutive weeks is the number worth pausing on. Holding a 5A opponent scoreless once is achievable against the right matchup. Doing it twice in a row describes a unit executing consistently.
Clarke County 34, Chickasaw 6
The Bulldogs won their 30th straight region game.
Isaiah Davis had a touchdown and intercepted two passes to help Clarke County roll past the Chieftains. Peebo Pugh hit Terry Kimbrough for a 37-yard touchdown pass on the opening drive, and Pugh added a 4-yard scoring run.
Jonathan Nichols scored on a 30-yard run for Chickasaw, but Jayden Gaillard answered immediately with a 75-yard kickoff return for a touchdown — the kind of sequence that removes whatever momentum a score was supposed to create.
Davis added a 5-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, and Ja’Marion Jenkins caught a touchdown pass from Pugh to close out the scoring for Clarke County, now 4-0 overall and 2-0 in Class 2A Region 1.
Thirty Straight Is a Long Time
A 30-game region winning streak spans multiple seasons and multiple graduating classes. In Alabama high school football, region play is typically five to seven games a year depending on classification and region size, which means a streak of that length reaches back roughly five seasons.
Streaks of that duration are not about a single dominant class. They are about a program that reloads — where the roster turns over completely two or three times and the result does not change. That generally requires a stable coaching staff, a feeder program that produces players ready to contribute as underclassmen, and a culture that transfers from one senior class to the next.
Clarke County is also 4-0 overall this season, which means the streak is not currently in danger from within.
Where the Region Races Stand
Class AA Region 1 tightened up. St. Michael’s win moved the Cardinals to 1-2 in region play and dropped St. Paul’s to the same mark, leaving both with limited margin in a race where region record determines playoff qualification.
Class 5A Region 1 is trending the other direction for Spanish Fort. At 3-0 in region play with a defense that has not allowed a point in two weeks, the Toros are in control of their own position. Blount, at 1-2, faces a narrower path.
Class 2A Region 1 remains Clarke County’s to lose, as it has been for five years.
The Injury Theme
One thread ran through the night’s marquee game and deserves its own note. St. Paul’s lost Fincher in the first quarter and Sellers late in the third. St. Michael was already without Rivers.
Week 5 is typically when attrition starts to show in high school football. Teams have four games of contact behind them, the weather is still warm in coastal Alabama, and depth charts that looked adequate in August start getting tested. Programs with enough roster depth to replace a starter without losing capability are the ones that tend to hold their position through October.
St. Paul’s found 108 yards and four touchdowns from its backup quarterback and still lost by four. St. Michael found 174 yards and three touchdowns from its backup and won.
Friday’s Scores
St. Michael Catholic 39, St. Paul’s 35 — at E.E. Delaney Stadium. St. Paul’s falls to 2-3, 1-2 in Class AA Region 1. St. Michael improves to 1-3, 1-2.
Spanish Fort 16, Blount 0 — Toros improve to 4-1, 3-0 in Class 5A Region 1. Blount falls to 2-3, 1-2.
Clarke County 34, Chickasaw 6 — Bulldogs improve to 4-0, 2-0 in Class 2A Region 1, winning a 30th consecutive region game.
The Fourth Quarter Is Where Class AA Region 1 Is Being Decided
An 18-point lead early in the third quarter is, statistically, a comfortable position in high school football. St. Paul’s held one and lost.
The sequence that undid it is visible in the box score. St. Michael needed three scores to erase 18 points, and it got them from three different sources: a 66-yard reverse, a 17-yard reception and a 7-yard pass with 1:09 remaining. The reverse in particular is the kind of call a team makes when it needs a chunk play rather than a drive — and when it hits for 66 yards, it changes the arithmetic of the rest of the game.
Ty Sellers leaving late in the third quarter with an apparent leg injury also matters to that turn. Sellers had 129 yards on 18 carries; losing a back with that workload in the middle of a lead removes the most reliable way to shorten a game. A team protecting an 18-point lead wants to run clock. A team that cannot run the ball effectively gives the ball back faster.
What Both Teams Take Into Next Week
St. Paul’s sits at 2-3 overall and 1-2 in region play, with a quarterback situation to sort out and a leading rusher whose status is unclear. Barnett’s postgame framing — heart, effort, bright spots, growth — is the language of a coach whose season is still in front of him rather than behind him, and at 1-2 in the region that is accurate. The path is narrow, not closed.
St. Michael at 1-3 and 1-2 is in a similar position with a much-needed result in hand. Winning a game a team was losing by 18 is worth more than a comfortable win of the same margin, because it establishes something about the group that shows up the next time a game goes sideways.
Three Games, Three Different Stories
Friday’s slate across the region produced three results that each say something different about where a program is.
St. Michael’s comeback is about resilience in a season that has not gone well — a 1-3 team finding a way to win a game it had lost. Spanish Fort’s shutout is about a defense rounding into form at the right point in a region schedule, with consecutive scoreless weeks and a 3-0 region mark. Clarke County’s win is about sustained dominance, the kind measured in years rather than weeks.
Taken together they are a reasonable snapshot of Week 5 in coastal Alabama: one team discovering it can, one team confirming it is, and one team continuing something it started five seasons ago.