All eyes in the crowd of 7,000 were on Saraland receiver C.D. (The Thrill) Gill but he had eyes only for this perfectly placed 23-yard touchdown pass from K.J. Lacey over Jackson’s Keegan Chapman in the fourth quarter to seal the Spartans’ 35-27 win Friday night. Gill had five catches for 178 yards and three touchdowns. (Josie Pittman/Courtesy of Mobtown Athlete)
Saraland quarterback K.J. Lacey scrambles away from Jackson’s pass rush Friday night during the 35-27 win over the Aggies. Lacey was spectacular, hurling three touchdown passes in the first quarter while eluding pressure and finished with 326 yards through the air and four touchdowns. (Todd Stacey/Call News)
SARALAND — It was an awkward way to start the showdown for Saraland quarterback K.J. Lacey, who after the first play looked every bit like he needed some more aspirin and maybe even a cot.
Even worse, if he had a relapse of his 101-degree fever and he or anyone else had to be taken to the hospital, it might have been faster to crowd surf out to the main road atop the hands of those who were turned away for fear of the exits being clogged if a fire started.
Lacey ignited one anyway on the third play — eliciting a sonic, five-alarm reaction from the 7,000 fans who saw it — and Jackson couldn’t turn on the hoses fast enough.
No one saw the 65-yard touchdown pass to C.D. (The Thrill) Gill coming, on third-and-10 mind you, not even Lacey, who unleashed it while being savagely pursued and said later: “I’m not sure now what the play was. I was just trying to survive.”
Just a few minutes before, Lacey had collected the first snap but lost his grip on the football during the delivery, slinging it off his hand as if it had bitten him and bouncing it off the turf at his feet.
So, two plays later, you didn’t expect the man who had both of those feet in his sickbed less than 24 hours before to demonstrate that he could stay ahead of the Aggies’ pass rush, which was intent on planting him in the ground like so many fall carrots.
But this was a 24-carat Lacey, who while still on the run and finally thrusting himself off the ground at the last minute — thereby showing the Thor-like power of his right arm — repeatedly drew back as some taut bow and dispensed a fusillade of arrows all at once. Some stuck neatly between the Aggies’ shoulder blades and the others stuck to his speedy Velcro strips, The Thrill and Dillon Alfred.
That’s what they did three times in a feverish first quarter that stamped Lacey as the man who will never roll over, just roll out. Three scrambles to the right during which Lacey stayed a fingertip away from being gnawed to pieces resulted in 65- and 28-yard TD passes to Gill and a 63-yarder to Alfred.
Lacey — always at his best when he creates something from nothing — completed 14 of 26 passes for 326 yards and four touchdowns to beat Jackson 35-27 Friday night in a game that disappointed no one, really, not even the Aggies, who contemplated their rally from a 28-7 deficit and a small mountain of self-inflicted offensive mistakes that can be corrected. Those include four false-start penalties, two delays of game and twice being flagged for having ineligible receivers downfield.
Afterward, Jackson coach Cody Flournoy and his players were far from being a deflated balloon that had just been popped.
“What’s our goal?” Flournoy asked them. “Game 15 and the state championship. We’re too good not to play better.”
The Spartans will remain No. 1 in Class 6A and the Aggies deserve to remain No. 1 in Class 4A.
“I doubt they’ll lose another game this year,” Saraland coach Jeff Kelly said.
Most teams see dramatic improvement between the first and second games, which bodes well for both.
“We didn’t open it up all the way,” Lacey said. “We’ve got a lot more in the bag.”
But the Spartans’ offensive line must get better at protecting Lacey and giving Santae McWilliams more room to operate. It’s not good for your star quarterback to run for his life, even if it is Lacey, and Saraland needs balance to challenge for a Blue Map.
Jackson quarterback Landon Duckworth, who like Lacey is a four-star prospect, pressed a little too much Friday night. The Spartans’ defense, which had 10 hurries, blitzed early and often before tapering off but Duckworth kept looking for it anyway and seemed rushed, even when he wasn’t.
The Aggies’ defense played much better than the score indicated. It didn’t allow Saraland to sustain drives and while Flournoy pointed to busted coverages that Lacey eagerly punctured, there is no defense against adversaries that gifted. Gill and Alfred found the soft spots, then used hands that seemed the size of the Gulf of Mexico to snare what Lacey flung at them.
While getting punished by Jackson’s E.J. Crowell — who ran for 206 yards and three touchdowns and showed why so many Power 5 schools want him — the Spartans’ defense will get better when four-star nose guard and Auburn commitment Antonio Coleman returns. As it was, after a high punt snap gave the Aggies the ball at the Spartans’ 35 in the second quarter, Saraland forced a punt, a nearly forgotten and pivotal moment in a game with a combined 817 yards of total offense.
But everyone came away from the game bombilating about Lacey more than anything and those who think the 6-foot Texas commitment is too short to excel in the SEC need to think again.
“C’mon K.J., work your magic,” one teammate uttered on the sideline during the fourth quarter as Jackson tightened the game to 28-20. And Lacey did with his final touchdown pass to put the game out of reach — a 23-yard rope thrown through a piece of pipe to Gill, who wears jersey 0, a number that cannot begin to describe his immense value.
Instead of being flushed to his right, as he was on his three previous scoring passes, Lacey dropped back and, using a good block by McWilliams to full effect, stood in the pocket and pumped a perfectly precise ball to The Thrill, who beat two defenders to the goal-line pylon. The stadium trembled.
“K.J. Lacey to C.D. Gill is going to run through my nightmares tonight,” Flournoy said.
Just as Lacey and his receivers did, the 7,000 fans fortunate enough to get a vantage point also went the extra mile — or two miles, literally straggling all the way from a church on Industrial Parkway to the field, then squeezing through the gates until being told there was no more room to even stand.
Spartan Stadium bulged at double its capacity and if everyone had been let in, the count would have exceeded 10,000.
The morning after, Saraland City Schools Superintendent Dr. Brent Harrison said he had been in touch with the school board about additional seating, including permanent aluminum bleachers for the band in the end zone by the scoreboard, thus opening space in the home grandstands.
“We will start consulting an architect to see what else could be done,” Harrison said.
It’s not hard to see that the next time the Spartans and Aggies are in the same place, it will probably be in a 47,000-seat stadium in Birmingham in December, when Blue Maps are the ultimate Christmas ornament.
