By By Chandler Myers
Escambia Academy’s win streak was stopped at one Friday night as they were beaten 30-14 by the Patrician Academy Saints in Butler.
The Saints (2-0, 0-0) took the field on the school’s “Night of Champions” and played like they were defending their AISA Class 1A state championship.
The Cougars (1-1, 0-0) faltered in the first half of the game giving up a quick 14 points to the Saints who scored on their first two possessions.
Cougars head coach Heath Gibson said his team just couldn’t get their feet under them once they got on offense.
The Cougars defense played with heart as their leading tackler scored an enormous amount of stops.
Cowboy McGhee gave a tremendous amount of effort as he put up 20 tackles, which was almost twice as much as the next person on the stat list.
Defensive tackle Will Hendrix followed Cowboy McGhee’s total with 11 tackles, while defensive back Jon Dean finished third on the team with 10 tackles. Braxton Chastang added eight stops against the Saints.
Gibson said his defense simply had trouble keeping the Saints from getting first downs, and added the guys who made the tackles just swarmed to the ball.
The offense found life in the second half as running back Jaylen Henry worked the Saints defense and found the endzone twice with runs of 69 and 51 yards. Henry had six carries for 144 yards.
Gibson said Henry was able to find the corners and made some moves to make it to the endzone.
Other offensive leaders included, Jon Dean with 15 carries for 61 yards, Cowboy McGhee who carried the ball 11 times for 58 yards and Cameron McGhee who was 5-for-6 passing with 33 yards.
Next week the Cougars host the Autauga Academy Generals in their first home game of the season.
Gibson said his team needs to work hard in practice next week to forget this loss and get a win.
The Cougars and Generals kickoff at 7 p.m. at Bachelor Field.