K.J. Lacey, Santae McWilliams lead No. 1 Saraland to third straight Super 7 with 47-12 romp over Pike Road

 

 

 

 

 

By JIMMY WIGFIELD

PIKE ROAD — No. 1-ranked Saraland was leading Pike Road 26-0 early in the second half Friday night with a third straight trip to the Super 7 all but assured, yet as far as Spartans coach Jeff Kelly was concerned, it was 0-0.

“I felt like we had to get up around 40 to feel safe,” Kelly said.

And then K.J. Lacey showed why he might be considered the best high school quarterback to ever put a hand on a football’s laces in this state.

In the midst of completing all nine of his passes in the second half — and with top receiver C.D. Gill held out as a precaution after an injury in the first half — the four-star Texas commitment detected an all-out blitz and checked to a fade to Deshawn Spencer, who worked free from a defender in the corner of the end zone for an 11-yard touchdown pass that looked as easy as chucking a penny into a swimming pool.

It was not that easy, nor, as Kelly said after the 47-12 victory, is reaching the Super 7 for three straight years, all with Lacey as the quarterback.

“K.J.!” Kelly yelled as Lacey came off the field. “That’s not a good job, that’s a great job!”

Afterward, Kelly reveled in the performance of his rare quarterback, whom he’ll get to enjoy for one more big game.

“That’s a veteran play,” Kelly said. “There’s not many high school kids that do that, to see it and get to the route and then execute with the strike. It’s not just a throw, it’s seeing it, recognizing, getting in the right situation. Everybody thinks I’m smart calling a good play and I’ve got good players that see it and make it happen.”

Lacey was 19-of-27 passing for 343 yards and three touchdowns as Saraland (13-0) advanced from the Class 6A semifinals to play No. 2 Parker (13-1) for its second state championship in the last three years Friday at 7 p.m. at Protective Stadium in Birmingham.

“We’ve won one, we’ve lost one and we’ll see what happens this week,” said Kelly, whose team is 83-0 all time when scoring at least 40 points. The Spartans — who have the most prolific offense in Class 6A — have scored 40 points in five straight games and have just two turnovers in the last six games or 297 snaps.

“Every time that we’re on the field, we want to go score and we’ve done that at a pretty good clip through the playoffs,” Kelly said. “Defensively, we’re playing good ball. We’re playing confident ball and we’re finding different ways to do it.”

Lacey threw TD passes of 11 and 51 yards to Spencer and 7 yards to Santae McWilliams, who scored four touchdowns.

Lacey’s fourth career 300-yard passing game in the playoffs gave him 10,764 career passing yards, leaving him 261 yards away from becoming the state’s all-time leading passer going into his final high school game. Piedmont’s Jack Hayes holds the record of 11,024 yards and Williamson’s Jamarcus Russell is No. 2 at 10,774.

McWilliams continued to peak in the playoffs, rushing for 104 yards on 18 carries, including scoring runs of 2, 7 and 38 yards.

“Santae McWilliams,” Lacey declared, “is Santae.”

Running behind an offensive line that is maturing at the right time and taking advantage of teams that are playing two-deep coverage — and still not doing much to divert Lacey and his receivers from their appointed rounds — McWilliams has now run for 1,813 career yards and 21 TDs in the playoffs and has 4,877 yards and 65 TDs in four years.

“Santae doesn’t need much,” Saraland offensive line coach Rotch Dungan said. “Give him a little breathing room, he can go. The offensive line has got a lot of confidence right now. They’re playing well as a group. Defenses are challenging us a little bit by playing two deep and making a lighter box and we’ve had to step up and respond. It may be what we see from here on out. We don’t really have that standout guy but you’ve got four seniors and four that have not been full-time starters before this year. It just took some time for them to come around a little bit from a confidence standpoint and just gelling together. I like where we’re at right now.”

McWilliams also showed his versatility with seven catches for 97 yards, six going for first downs and the other a touchdown from Lacey, who lined up at wideout, took a reverse pitch from Spencer, rolled to his right and lofted a perfect throw to McWilliams just before halftime.

“One of the big keys was Santae out of the backfield,” Kelly said. “They were doing some different things coverage-wise and we found some things open with Santae out of the backfield. We’ve been able to find answers and we’ve got to continue to do that.”

No one has had any answers for the Spartans in quite some time — they have the best record in Class 6A (62-8) over the last five seasons, have never trailed this year and haven’t even trailed for an hour over the last three seasons. Saraland has been behind for only 50:29 out of 1,632 minutes in the last 34 games going back to 2022.

“There’s no room for letdowns, there’s no room for mistakes, there’s no room for second chances in the playoffs,” Kelly said. “I told our guys tonight — and I’ve told them before — I think they have the innate ability to play their best in the big moments. It’s almost like they’re born to do this. They thrive in this situation and our guys that we lean on to lead us and make plays, they love the big moment and they love these games.

“They’ve played with amazing consistency over the last three years. I love this football team. It’s not the most talented team we may have had top to bottom but they love each other, they love ball and I think they play the hardest. I don’t want to downplay getting there because it is a huge thing but our goal is to go finish.”

Lacey is keenly aware of finishing. In last year’s state championship game, he threw for a Super 7-record 391 yards but was stopped at the 1-yard line as time expired in a 31-28 loss to Clay-Chalkville, a defeat that erased any chance of a Spartans three-peat.

“It’s a full-on grind now,” Lacey said. “We can’t make a lot of mistakes. We make other people make mistakes. The defense is playing really good, the offense is playing really good, the receivers, running backs, O-line, everybody. I feel like we’ve been warming up the whole season and then we get into these playoff games and we play our butts off.”

The state finals will feature Class 6A’s top two defenses against the score — Parker is No. 1 and Saraland is No. 2. On Friday night, the Spartans held the Patriots (10-4) to 234 yards of total offense and just 2 of 10 on third down. At one point, Saraland stopped Pike Road on eight straight third downs.

The Spartans had their doubters after losing nine defensive starters but they’ve been dominant all season.

“The whole year, they’ve kind of played with that chip on their shoulder and trying to prove everybody wrong and they’ve certainly done that,” defensive coordinator Brett West said. “I told them before the game tonight that you don’t have anything to prove to us but there’s still some people around the state that you need to go prove something to, so I think they took that to heart. They played great. Tonight, it looked like our inside backers were making a ton of plays, and they were, but they’re only able to do that because our defensive line does such a good job of demanding double teams and that kind of frees those guys up.”

Linebacker Jakari Harris, the team’s leading tackler, has enjoyed proving the naysayers wrong.

“We’ve got a mentality, like, all hats to the ball,” he said. “We’re swarming. We communicate very well, fly to the ball, wrap up, run your feet. We’re a brotherhood and that’s how we’re going to do it. We lost a lot of seniors last year. They thought that we weren’t going to be as much of a factor as we were last year and we proved them wrong. We haven’t trailed not one time this season.”

If Saraland keeps that streak intact one more week, the Spartans will have a second Blue Map.