James Clemens falls short against Spain Park in matchup of unbeatens

MADISON – In last Friday’s pivotal midseason matchup of topranked undefeated teams at Madison City Stadium, host James Clemens took an early 17-7 lead.

Momentum, however, swung in favor of Spain Park, which rallied for a 10-point win.

The Jets fell from the unbeaten ranks to 4-1 with that 34-24 loss while the Jaguars improved to 5-0. Since James Clemens is a Class 7A, Region 4 team and Spain Park competes in 6A-3 there will be no rematch in the playoffs.

“When you get two top 10 teams going, somebody had to lose it,” James Clemens coach Chad McGehee said.

Nonetheless, McGehee encouraged his team to keep its sights on repeating as a region champion and aiming for what could be a third title in four years. Aside from last year’s region crown, the Jets went unbeaten in 2021, that 10-0 mark coming in the coach’s first season at Clemens.

Clemens marched 75 yards downfield in eight plays on the game’s opening drive, highlighted by quarterback Matthew Evers’ 24-yard pass to Ty Doughty and capped by M.J. Gideon’s 4-yard touchdown run.

The Jets capitalized on a turnover to quickly score again. Brycen Dowdell ended Spain Park’s first drive with an interception and Clemens took a 14-0 lead on 23-yard scoring pass from Evers to tight end Isaac Achenbach, who bulled his way into the end zone by shaking off a pair of defenders for his first touchdown of the season.

“He doesn’t get the opportunity to score often,” McGehee said.

The Jaguars cut their deficit in half with quarterback Brock Bradley scoring on a 3-yard bootleg around the right side. That drive was set up by Andrew Thornton’s 30-yard gain on a reverse.

On their ensuing possession, the Jets drove inside the 10-yard line before settling for an Anthony Ortiz 30-yard field goal for a 17-7 lead. That margin might have stood at halftime if not for Joe Cross’ interception of an Evers pass in the waning minutes. The Jaguars pulled within 17-14 on Bradley’s quarterback sneak from a yard out.

Racking up 17 points in the first half and totaling 24 against a foe that came into the game ranked third in Class 6A of the Alabama Sports Writers Association poll is something McGehee said his players should be proud of.

“We want to sustain drives, and I thought that was the best our offense has looked,” he said. “Matthew Evers, getting his first start, managed the game well. We just didn’t finish a couple of drives. We wanted to keep Spain Park off the field because their quarterback (Bradley is a Clemson commit) is so explosive.”

Hoping to build on that threepoint lead the Jets tried an onside kick to start the third quarter. Ortiz recovered his own kick but unfortunately it came just shy of advancing a mandatory 10 yards and Spain Park took possession.

“It’s something that we always carry,” McGehee said of the onside kick being part of the playbook. “We had it, but our kicker was about one yard short. We told the kids we were going to do it. We were going to play to win.”

Spain Park rallied on a pair of touchdown passes from Bradley to Ryan Breazele — the latter score set up by Evers’ second interception — to go ahead 27-17, but Clemens still had some fight left. Evers completed a fourth-down pass over the middle to A.J. Little before scoring on an 8-yard scamper up the middle to bring the Jets within 27-24.

“That was a big catch to keep the drive going,” McGehee said of Little’s clutch reception late in the fourth quarter.

The Jaguars clinched it on Dakarai Shanks’ 3-yard touchdown run with less than five minutes left.