PHENIX CITY – As Urijah Casey strutted into the end zone to put the Thompson Warriors up 35-14 over the Central Red Devils with 9:58 left, it was tempting to think the Warriors had booked their eighth-straight trip to the state championship game.
However, that celebration was momentarily delayed.
Central-Phenix City worked its way down the field in a five-minute drive to score, and on Thompson's first play of the drive, it gave up a scoop-and-score touchdown. That cut the score to 35-28 in a matter of seconds, and the pressure was only ramped up when the Red Devils scored again with less than a minute left.
Central coach Patrick Nix opted to go for two and the win, and all of a sudden, the team that was up 21 needed one more stop to survive.
Enter Junior James.
James read BJ Coleman's pass to the outside and blew it up right after the catch, finishing through the hit to finish the 35-34 win for the Warriors in the Class 7A semifinals on Nov. 21 at Garrett-Harrison Stadium.
"I wish I was watching instead of playing in it," Thompson coach Mark Freeman joked. "But it was a great game, and like I said, I think everybody in the state knew this game was coming, and there's other two great teams left, but this game here, I don't care if it was Week Five or Week One. It was going be like this. Thank God we're on the winning end."
Central opted to start the game with the ball, but Thompson negated that advantage with a Damonte Tabb interception on the right side on third-and-9.
From there, Pryce Lewis picked up a pair of first downs to put the Warriors on the doorstep. Trent Seaborn rolled right and found Mehkii Billingsley for the 3-yard touchdown and the 7-0 lead with 8:48 left in the first.
Central methodically worked its way down the field using short passes and third-down runs. While an ineligible receiver penalty called back a wide-open touchdown, another third-down conversion in the air got the Devils to the 13-yard line, and Coleman hit JJ Joiner for the 3-yard touchdown to tie the game at 7-7 with 2:37 left in the first.
Darion Moseley got Thompson going down the field, but a rare mistake from the pass game flipped the field. A miscommunication between quarterback and receiver led to an interception inside the 10-yard line, and Central capitalized from there.
The Devils ran 14 yards to get past midfield, and on the very next play, Coleman found Mike Bass in a one-on-one, and despite interference still caught the ball and took it 44 yards for the touchdown.
That gave Central a 14-7 lead with 10:23 left in the second and forced a Thompson response.
The Warriors couldn't respond on their next drive and punted, but a three-and-out from their own defense put them in business near midfield.
Seaborn found Riley Bryant in stride on the first play of the drive for 26 yards. The drive nearly stalled out at fourth-and-6, but a presnap penalty moved it up to fourth-and-1. Despite needing just one yard and his team not moving on the ground to that point, KJ Jackson burst through the line for 17 yards and the score.
That was the switch that flipped the momentum for the rest of the half, and points off turnovers were the theme for the final five minutes.
While a roughing the punter penalty threatened to energize the Devils, Chance Strown stopped them in their tracks on the next play with an interception.
It only took three plays after that to score, including a Moseley toe-tap for 28 yards on the first play and a 17-yard scoring run by RJ Evans. That put Thompson back up by seven, this time 21-14 with 2:59 left in the half.
The Warriors brought pressure on the next drive, and after Ami Moala flushed Coleman left, a right sideline throw turned into a diving pick out of bounds by Jermy Alo-Perry.
Thompson stalled out on the ground and faced fourth-and-8, but a presnap jump encouraged Freeman to go for six with seconds left. He got that when Seaborn hit a wide-open Moseley in stride on the left sideline for the 35-yard touchdown, and the Warriors went into the break up 28-14 and with the ball to start the second half.
That advantage came and went though as Thompson punted on its next two drives. Luckily for the Warriors though, Tabb came up big both times.
After Central converted a fourth-and-1, Coleman opted for a house call but instead found Tabb behind his receiver in the back of the end zone.
On the next Red Devils drive, Tabb leapt up on the sideline and over the receiver to grab the ball, and he deftly stuck his left foot down on the green grass to ensure he stayed inbounds and secured his third interception of the day.
Thompson's rushing woes continued on its next drive with a fourth-and-2 run stuffed at the 31-yard line, but its defense stood tall once again. Trent McCorvey went low on fourth-and-1 on the Warriors 19-yard line to stop the Red Devils in the red zone with a turnover on downs of their own.
The drought ended there as Thompson went 81 yards in just 1:20, finding Lewis on a post route for 28 yards on third down before Casey reeled off a 53-yard rushing touchdown on the very next play.
That put the Warriors in front 35-14 with 9:58 left, but instead of it being a knockout punch, Central beat the count and put Thompson on the ropes.
Coleman found a wide open man in the middle of the zone to get to the 25-yard line, but the Warriors forced a fourth-and-5 shortly after. Thompson's defense flushed Coleman to the left side, but it gave up enough running room for him to hit the pylon and cut the gap to 14.
The Red Devils onside kick failed, but a scoop-and-score on the next play was the true dagger, making it a 35-28 game with 4:24 left.
What's more, the Warriors opted for three-straight run plays and went nowhere on their next drive, punting the ball back to Central with 1:47 left.
It was a drive that had shades of Thompson's final offensive series against Hoover, where the Warriors allowed the Bucs to drive down and win the game off a buzzer-beating field goal. History nearly repeated itself.
A personal foul moved the ball up to the Thompson 35-yard line, and Coleman soon found a man up the middle to get inside the red zone. He connected once more on the next play for a 14-yard touchdown, cutting the score to 35-34 before Nix opted to go for two.
That's when James stepped up and blew up the pass play to give Thompson the ball back with 53 seconds to go, and Seaborn kneeled the ball to escape with the win.
Seaborn finished 14-of-24 for 231 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. Moseley was his top receiver with five catches for 100 yards and a touchdown while Lewis had five catches for 74 yards and Bryant caught two balls for 54 yards.
Despite the lack of consistent yards all game, which Freeman credited to Central's defensive line, Jackson, Casey and Evans each scored a touchdown. Casey was the leading rusher with 14 carries for 84 yards and a touchdown.
Earlier in the season, Freeman said that his team takes stock of its challenging games, whether given to them in region play or intentionally scheduled in non-region play, to prepare for moments like this.
He said his team took advantage of those lessons to dig deep and come away with the win.
"We want to play good teams, and I think those games have bottled up like we told y'all," Freeman said. "Those games bottle up, and they help us get through these things. We had an overtime game at Grayson. We had a last-minute at Clay, a last-minute field goal at Hoover. All those games helped build what we had tonight. So, I thank God for the journey. I don't question the journey."
Now, that journey will roll through the Class 7A state championship, which will see Thompson face the Opelika Bulldogs on Wednesday, Dec. 3 at Protective Stadium in Birmingham.
