By Donald Campbell

The Alexander City Outlook

After a humiliating loss to rival Reeltown, the Dadeville Tigers rebounded to win their first home game and first Class 3A Region 3 game of the season, downing the Southside Selma Panthers 31-13.

“We just had to get rid of last week’s loss,” Dadeville coach Richard White said. “This is one that matters as far as playoffs are concerned. I thought we played well first half; second half, we were sloppy. We have to clean that up if we’re going to be a good team, if we want to be in competition for the playoffs, we have to clean the second half of this game up.”

Southside Selma coach Daniel Flowers said, “We prepared all week. We just, from us getting from Southside to here, it kinda hurt us a little bit. It was just a bad mood for us.”

Dadeville (2-1, 1-0) seized momentum right out of the gate, taking the opening kickoff out to its own 36-yard line. Six plays later, aided by two Southside offside penalties, quarterback Slade McCullers found Zander McClendon in the end zone. Although the kick failed, the Tigers refused to let momentum go until halftime.

Seven seconds later, Dadeville struck paydirt again, when Alex Walker scooped and scored on a Panther fumble. McCullers rushed in a two-point conversion, but a false start negated the play. On the redo, his pass fell incomplete, leaving the Tigers ahead 12-0.

Despite Dadeville scoring again in the opening frame, when McCullers found Cooper Childers from 11 yards out, then tacking on another six points when Javuntae Holley pounded the rock in at the start of the second quarter to take a 25-0 lead, Southside Selma (0-3, 0-1) had its moments in the first half. Forced to punt on a fourth and 23, the Panthers recovered a Dadeville fumble on the return, setting themselves up with a new set of downs near midfield. Quarterback Malik Johnson moved the ball through the air, finding Derrick Caffey on third and eight, and despite being sacked to set up a third and 24, rushed forward to make it a manageable fourth and 2 at the Dadeville 28. However, any momentum the Panthers gained on the drive was squandered when Johnson fumbled when trying to convert.

The first half ended with the Tigers making a fairly strong stand after letting the Panthers get all the way down to the Dadeville 24. A block in the back penalty pushed Southside back 10 yards, then Ladarius Heard sacked Johnson for a 12-yard loss. Dadeville forced Southside to punt, running two plays before the half came to an end.

The Panthers began to build some traction after the break, finally hanging their first points of the game on the board after Johnson hit Trendarius Carter on a 4-yard pass early in the third quarter, before William Wright’s PAT narrowed the gap to 25-7.

Dadeville then chewed up more than five minutes of clock, moving the ball all the way down to the Southside 12, but the Panther defense stood strong and forced two incomplete passes from McCullers to turn the ball over on downs. However, Southside squandered a prime chance when, after moving the ball to the Tiger 42, lost the ball on a fumble.

Turnover woes plagued both teams in the final frame when Dadeville’s first play of the fourth quarter at midfield resulted in a fumble. The very next play, the Tigers got it right back when the Panthers coughed the ball up on a bad snap fumble.

“We started subbing pretty liberally and we had to quit,” White said. “The guys we put in there, they were not getting lined up correctly, weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing so we had to put our first unit back on the field.”

After stopping the Tigers again on fourth down, Johnson was picked off when Walker again came up with a big play. However, Dadeville soon gave the ball back on a fumble, which Southside scooped and scored to narrow the gap to 25-13.

This was as close as the Panthers got though, when Holley rushed in from 1 yard out with just over four minutes to go to set the final score of 31-13.

One thing both coaches said needed to be cleaned up moving forward was not committing so many penalties. Southside had multiple plays called dead on a false start, at least two ineligible receiver penalties and a handful of delay of game calls, while Dadeville had a block in the back, a facemask and an unsportsmanlike penalty.

“We’ve got to tell our kids to be disciplined,” Flowers said.

As both teams move forward and continue in region play, both coaches said there were good things to take away from Friday night, but there are still things to be worked on and improved as the season continues.

“We’re gonna watch the film and we’re gonna take the good that we did and try to get better at that and the bad that we did, try to clean that up and fix it and hopefully get better next week,” White said. “The thing we’ve gotta do with this team is get better every week.”

Flowers said, “At times we did well, we just need consistency. We’ve just got to get back to the drawing board and get our guys ready to play again. We’ve got to move forward. Just move forward.”