“We really had a good showing,” Mahand said. “The score really doesn’t dictate the game. We took our starters out pretty early. We didn’t play Javion McCoy but one series. He tweaked his ankle a little, he would have been able to come back, but I didn’t see the need in a fall jamboree. We took our starters out pretty early and did what I wanted to do. I got the little work in under the lights and some game reps to help us get prepared to open up the season against Winterboro.”
The Tigers came out of the gate slow and sloppy on their first possession of the game. Senior Javion McCoy rushed for four yards and twisted his ankle on the opening play of the game. Things got worst for Talladega when Zack Spratlin’s pass was picked off and returned to the Tigers 7-yard line.
The Golden Eagles capitalized on the Tigers mistake on the very next play to take a 6-0 lead.
“Our defense played real well, Mahand said. “I was talking to my offense about that. The couple scores they got were because the offense put the defense in bad situations and that is what we cant do. We are going to play good defense, we just going to have to make sure the offense protects the ball and don’t turn the ball over deep to put our defense in bad situations.”
The Tigers’ offense got things going on their third possession of the night. Talladega put together a nine-play 70-yard drive for for a touchdown. The key play of the drive was a 35- yard touchdown pass from Spratlin to Justin Kelley on 4th-and-12. The extra point attempt was no good.
Talladega’s defense came out fired up after the scoring drive and caused havoc on the BTW offense. The Tigers forced the BTW offens to a three and out.
After a short punt the Tigers took over at the BTW 23-yard line. Spratlin connected with Carlos Turner for 9-yards. Turner rushed for three more yard for the first down. The BTW forced the Tigers to backwards on three straight plays. Jackson Bailey connected on a 31-yard field to give Talladega 9-6 lead.
BTW came out in the second half and put together a 70-yard drive for a touchdown to make it 13-9.
Talladega’s defense got them back in the game as Ahmad Gooden picked off a pass and took it 27 yards for a touchdown. The extra point was good to give the Tigers a 16-13 lead with 2:06 left in the third quarter.
The Golden Eagles went down the field 70 yards on the ensuing possession to score what would be the game-winning touchdown. Dontaviuos Moore scored the game winner from 3 yards out to make it 19-16. The two-point conversion was good to make it 21-16.
Talladega hosts Winterboro on Friday at 7 p.m.
