The Selma Saints lost their homecoming game Friday night to Stanhope Elmore 31-20.

The first and only touchdown of the first quarter was a 1-yard run touchdown from Selma’s No. 2 running back Amarian Molette.

After missing the extra point, the score was 6-0.

The Mustangs returned with their own score on a field goal kick by Xavier Hall with 10:30 left in the second quarter.

The Saints answered with a safety with 6:56 left in the first half to make the score 8-3.

The Mustangs scored their first touchdown on a pass play with 2:11 left in the second quarter.

After halftime, the Mustangs scored again on a pass play with 5:41 left in the third quarter.

The Saints had a highlight moment with an interception return touchdown by Javonte Stubbs which made the score 17-14 with 9:20 left in the fourth quarter.

The Mustangs extended their lead with their third passing touchdown of the game, which gave them a 24-14 lead with 7:51 left in the game.

The fourth quarter continued with scores after Hall made a run with 4:13 left in the fourth quarter to put the Mustangs up 31-14.

The final score of the night came from the Saints with three seconds left in the game, when Gabriel Wade caught a touchdown pass to cut the lead to 31-20 before time expired.

“Stanhope is a good team and we are trying to get to where everybody needs to be in this region. You can’t make the mistakes we made and doing the little undisciplined things we do,” said Selma head coach Christopher Raymond. “You see some improvement at times and then we go backwards at times. To beat the Stanhopes, the Wetumpkas and the Opelikas you have to play at a certain level every night.”

The Saints face No. 6 Wetumpka next weekend, who was defeated by Stanhope Elmore last week.

“We are going to go back and try and improve on the things we do well and not concentrate on the mistakes,” he said.

Stanhope is a 3-0 in region games at the top of the 6A Region 3 standing, and the loss Friday means that the Saints won’t be going to playoffs.

During halftime, the homecoming court was announced.

Ninth-grade representatives were Ja’Kyra Norwood, Michael Davis-Lawson; tenth-grade representatives were Breya Johnon, Jaris Moss Jr., eleventh-grade representatives were Acadia Thomas and Chad Parker, twelfth-grade representatives were Ashley Brown and Allen King.

The second runner-up was Delrion Homes and Tamya Salter and first runner up was Ja’quinn Johnson and Keriana Moore and the homecoming king and queen for 2018 was Ralph Pruitt and Jordan Johnson.