Controversial touchdown call lifts Thompson over Rebels

ALABASTER — Vestavia Hills High School's longtime head football coach Buddy Anderson does not like to lose games.

He especially does not like to lose a game on what he considers a bad call by the officials.

But his Rebels came out on the wrong end of a 17-10 score at the hands of Thompson, thanks to a leaping catch in the end zone by wide receiver Sam Holmes, a third-quarter touchdown that turned out to be the winning points for the Warriors.

Anderson — along with almost everyone else on the Vestavia Hills sideline that had a view of Holmes’ catch along the boundary — thought that Holmes failed to get either foot down for a legal catch. Anderson’s vocal protests to the head linesman fell on deaf ears.

“I thought the guy was way out of bounds, and it was a bad call,” Anderson said. “But those things happen, and you have to overcome those. We didn’t help ourselves — we hurt ourselves more than anything.”

That touchdown was just one of several problems that the young Rebel squad could not quite overcome. Some of their mistakes involved simply not being where a player was supposed to be.

“We busted assignments,” Anderson said. “We busted it on that blocked punt, and gave up a cheap [score] in the kicking game.”

That came in the second quarter, as Thompson’s Christopher Lewis picked up the blocked kick and ran it back 38 yards for a touchdown. The score came with 1:50 left in the second period.

The Warriors drew first blood when a drive stalled out at the Rebel 3-yard line, as the hosts couldn’t capitalize on a 65-yard pass from Josh Huner to Mo Edwards. Jacob Brown kicked a 20-yard chip shot field goal with 39 seconds left in the first quarter.

Vestavia took their only lead of the game midway through the second frame, capping off a 13-play drive with a 5-yard run by Toliver Chatwood. The Rebs went up 7-3 with 6:30 left before halftime.

The Lewis scoring runback gave the hosts a 10-7 lead, but Vestavia was able to tie the game at 10-10 with 31 seconds left in the half, as Manraj Singh put a 40-yard kick through the uprights.

The winning touchdown for Thompson came after an interception of a Coleman Petway pass by Myles Brown, which put the Warriors in business at the Vestavia 38-yard line. Three plays later, Huner found Holmes with a guided-missile throw, which Holmes had to extend himself fully to catch — his hands were easily five feet past the sideline when he caught the pass.

From that point on, Vestavia simply could not get anything going offensively. In their last five drives, the Rebels turned the ball over on downs, punted twice, yielded an interception and then finally came up short on fourth down with 1.8 seconds left in the game.

“I’m not sure we’ve ever beaten them. At least it’s been a long time,” Freeman said. “But it was a big win because it convinced our team that they could beat a team like [Vestavia].”

For the record, the Warriors’ win broke a losing streak of 13 straight games against the Rebels, dating back to a 29-22 win in 1992.

Vestavia (3-3, 1-3 region) mustered only 151 yards in total offense, with 51 yards on 40 rush attempts. Petway was 11-of-19 in passing with two interceptions for 105 yards.

Thompson (4-2, 2-2) hosts Spain Park next week, while the Rebels will welcome Mountain Brook.

Game note: According to AHSAA Communications Director Ron Ingram, who covered Anderson and his teams for nearly a quarter of a century at The Birmingham News, the coach has totaled 323 wins in his career — all at Vestavia Hills. Another win will put him one game past the total of Alabama Crimson Tide coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, and will make Anderson the winningest coach at any level of football in the state of Alabama.