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When the opportunity presented itself, the Vestavia Hills football team took it and ran… and also threw.
The Rebels converted three second-half fumble recoveries into three touchdowns and rolled to a 37-7 win over host Mountain Brook Friday night in a Class 7A, Region 3 game.
“Our defense played great,” Rebels coach Buddy Anderson said. “We played physical, we played great. We didn’t have a good game last week and they just came out and worked their hands off in practice this week to get better.”
Levi Wiggins returned one of the fumbles 41 yards for a score and Reid Adams had a 48-yard fumble return for a score for Vestavia Hills (3-1, 2-1).
The defense, which forced four turnovers, was a perfect complement for Rebels quarterback Brett Jones, who this season has been a perfect complement for the usual rush-first Vestavia Hills offense. The senior used the short game to complete 10 of 11 passes for 142 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
“That was our game plan tonight,” Jones said. “We watched film and we saw that we could do it and we did it.”
After Mountain Brook (1-3, 0-3) lost the ball on its first drive of the second half, Jones took his lone deep shot of the night and connected with Remington Patterson for a 43-yard touchdown pass.
“We just keep throwing the ball in practice and we keep working on it,” Patterson said. “We just keep trying our best and trying our hardest and when we block well we can throw the ball.”
The Spartans fumbled on the next drive, giving Wiggins his run to the end zone to make it 30-7. With 7:44 left in the third quarter.
“It was just there,” Wiggins said. “I was just happy to get my hands on the ball and score.
"Our coaches put us in the right position and we just had to make plays, and I think we did that.”
The Rebels used 15 plays to cover 80 yards and eat up 7 minutes, 35 seconds of the clock on the opening drive of the game to take a 7-0 lead. Thirteen of those plays were runs but Vestavia hit pay dirt on a 7-yard reception by Nolan Turner.
Vestavia made it 14-0 on the first play of the second quarter when Walker Minor broke through the middle of the line for a 9-yard touchdown run.
The lead jumped to 16-0 with a high snap on a Spartans punt that sailed out of the end zone, but Mountain Brook used eight plays to cover 80 yards after a Vestavia Hills missed field goal. After five consecutive runs by Harrison Pyburn, quarterback Connor Adair connected on three straight passes, the last being a 10-yard scoring toss to Sims Herron with 16.9 seconds left in the first half.
That was as good as it got for the Spartans.
“They were ready and they played a great game,” Mountain Brook coach Chris Yeager said. “They played hard and played tough. We turned the ball over, made a lot of mistakes, made too many mistakes. We probably made more mistakes in this game than we’ve made in the whole season. We just have to work and correct them.
"I’ve never been in one of these games where the turnover ratio hasn’t been key and when it rained it just poured, that’s the way it was.”
