Mary G. Montgomery quarterback Shondell Harris knocks the helmet off Gulf Shores defender Jaden Dobbins on a 4-yard touchdown run in the second quarter Friday night in Semmes. Harris scored the winning touchdown on a 14-yard run in the fourth quarter, ran for 102 yards on 13 carries and was 7-of-12 passing for 114 yards and another TD. (Helen Joyce/Call News)
Mary Montgomery’s Shemar Elston blocked this 35-yard field goal attempt by Gulf Shores’ Taylor Barkley in the third quarter, which turned out to be a huge play in the Vikings’ 21-17 win. (Helen Joyce/Call News)
Gulf Shores quarterback Kolin Wilson keeps the ball against Mary Montgomery Friday night on his way to 358 yards on 33 carries and two touchdowns. (Helen Joyce/Call News)
By JIMMY WIGFIELD
SEMMES — Mary G. Montgomery’s offense, which was still under construction last week, had its formal ribbon cutting on Friday night and quarterback Shondell Harris wielded the scissors.
A week after losing to Pace, Fla., when they couldn’t score from inside the 10-yard line in overtime, Harris and the Vikings snipped, sliced and bludgeoned their way 85 yards in 13 plays through the heart of the fourth quarter to rally past defending Class 5A state champion Gulf Shores 21-17 at Grider Stadium.
On the 13th play, with local cardiologists warming up the defibrillators, Harris rode a textbook fake and keep to the end zone for the winning touchdown. He left the ball with Devin Pettway long enough for Pettway to get flattened and Harris, avoiding the crash, pulled the ball out, saw an alley open to his right and wedged his toes just inside the pylon to score from 14 yards out with 4:09 remaining to give MGM the lead.
Earlier, Harris had scored his first touchdown with a withering stiff-arm that peeled the helmet off a Dolphins defender and put him on his back. Now, with the game writhing back and forth, Vikings coach Zach Golson had an unequivocal message for his enforcer.
“It’s time for you to put us on your back,” Golson told Harris. “The offensive line let us run straight at them. They were worn down. It was a very physical game.”
Gulf Shores wasn’t the only team that was drained but MGM tried not to show it.
“Everybody was gassed but we couldn’t show a weakness,” left tackle Jon Stephens said. “We had to keep fighting. We had to finish it off.”
Mary Montgomery was almost finished off by a harrowing Kolinoscopy as the Dolphins’ Kolin Wilson ran for 358 yards on 33 carries, scored on runs of 15 and 65 yards and nearly gave the No. 10-ranked Class 7A Vikings an unexpected 0-2 start to their season.
“We didn’t have that in the gameplan,” said Pettway, who along with Harris moved to linebacker and strong safety, respectively, in the second half when the coaching staff broke the emergency glass and set off the alarms at halftime. They helped hold Wilson to 61 yards on 15 carries in the final two quarters.
Wilson, a Mississippi State commitment who was moved to quarterback when starter Jud Harris was injured in the season opener, repeatedly gashed MGM’s defense with read options and straight carries and piled up 107 yards by the end of the first quarter and 297 by halftime.
With Gulf Shores trailing for the first time in the second half and nearing exhaustion, Wilson still had enough left to take hold of a short rope and pull the Dolphins from their 25 to the Vikings’ 16 in the final four minutes before Kaleb Morris sacked freshman quarterback Davis Bennett for an 8-yard loss on fourth down with 37 seconds left to preserve the victory.
“That last play, I was doing what my coach always tells me — dominate and finish,” Morris said. “I was surprised (Wilson) wasn’t at quarterback, that they didn’t run it out of the zone. To get the game-winning sack, a lot of D-linemen can’t say that.”
Gulf Shores coach Mark Hudspeth said he put Bennett at quarterback because they were running out of time and Wilson can’t pass nearly as well as he can run.
“We didn’t think we had enough time to finish it getting three and four yards a pop,” Hudspeth said. “We put our best players on the edge and almost did it. Kolin was a warrior tonight.”
Harris and Pettway played both ways and MGM needed everything they could give.
Harris, who helped set the edge off the corner in the second half and gave the Vikings an extra defender to keep Wilson from breaking loose, also ran for 102 yards on 13 carries and added a 4-yard touchdown run in the second quarter in which he knocked the helmet off Dolphins defender Jaden Dobbins and glowered over him momentarily before being mobbed by his teammates. Harris was also 7-of-12 passing for 114 yards, including a 63-yard TD bomb to Jaiden Smith in the first quarter.
Pettway ran for 91 yards on 12 carries, helping MGM gouge out 252 yards rushing.
“These are two monsters,” Golson proclaimed as he put his arms around Harris and Pettway after the game.
Harris and Pettway knew at halftime they had to help plug the holes that Wilson had hollowed out in the Vikings’ defense.
“If they need us, we’re going to come,” Pettway said.
Almost lost in the dramatic ending was MGM’s Shemar Elston blocking Taylor Barkley’s 35-yard field goal in the third quarter that would have given Gulf Shores a 20-14 lead and put it in position for a winning field goal in the final seconds. Barkley had kicked a 31-yarder in the second quarter to give the Dolphins a 17-14 halftime lead.
Gulf Shores also lost two fumbles recovered by the Vikings’ Jordan Simmons and C.J. Smith at the MGM 5 and 8 in the first half.
“That was the difference in the game,” Hudspeth said.
Meanwhile, Mary Montgomery has just one turnover so far this season — an interception Harris forced into coverage at the Vikings’ 46 early in the fourth quarter. MGM’s defense promptly forced a three-and-out.
Just as significantly, Harris was at the wheel of a patient offense that took what former Auburn, Georgia, Notre Dame and Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder gave it. Harris took his shots downfield when the Dolphins walked down and blitzed, then ran it when they backed off.
The Vikings’ offense also played much cleaner this week — with only one holding penalty, one delay of game and no false starts — than in the 17-14 loss to Pace, which was stained by numerous pre-snap penalties and what Harris called a “childish” approach to the season opener.
“This week, we were way more dialed in,” he said. “Last week, we thought we were big, ol’ Mary Montgomery. It’s like we needed that loss to make us hungry again.”
The Vikings needed a win to help Golson sleep again. After the loss to Pace, he agonized over the defeat and spent a restless night on a futon in the fieldhouse.
“I hate to lose and I’ll try and figure out what I could have done different,” Golson said. “My wife kills me about it. Sometimes, I lose sleep over it. But this week, our prep was up there with maybe the best we’ve had in the three years I’ve been here. Sometimes, you learn more from a loss than a win. You check yourself. We had 140 people do that.”
That MGM ran the ball so well with a reconstructed offensive line showed how well the program prepares its players, Golson said. Senior right tackle Kyle Thomas suffered a torn meniscus just before the season opener, forcing Golson to move Grant Houseknecht to left guard, Ryan Holmes to center, Eric Griffin to right guard and Brayden Gartmen to right tackle.
“Losing Kyle was a challenge but it has been cool to see a couple of guys step forward,” said Golson, who hopes to get Thomas back in a month following successful surgery. “It shows we develop all our players, not just the starters.”
In the winning drive, Harris had gains of 8, 9, 5, 1, 5 and 14 yards and had to throw just twice. The first one was a crucial 11-yard curl to Elston, who made a leaping catch of a high delivery against tight coverage on third-and-8 to keep the possession alive. On the other, Gulf Shores was penalized 15 yards for roughing Harris.
“We kept believing in our process and everybody stayed consistent,” Harris said.
As often happens in times of adversity, Wilson’s performance brought out the best in the Vikings. At halftime, Golson told his players that overcoming someone who was on pace for a 600-yard rushing game could prove extremely consequential.
“I told them this could be a pivotal moment for us as a team, that we had to figure out a way to win,” he said. “We had talked about (Wilson) as one of the options. I think they watched what Pace did and snapped it to him and they ran that same offense.”
Defensive coordinator Alex Page said MGM’s defense was more disciplined in the second half.
“We made a couple of interior adjustments and re-emphasized some technique,” he said. “It’s option football at the end of the day. They broke some big ones on us and we were either lined up wrong or went the wrong way on our reads. The second half, we played just as hard but we put them in better spots. Shondell and Devin gave us a spark. But the interior D-line, it started there. We started knocking them back.”
After it was over, a weary Pettway had one request.
“I need some juice,” he said. He could have used it to make a toast to a team that refused to lose.
