BY DANIEL SCHMIDT
THE OBSERVER
OPELIKA — Opelika High School trailed for nearly the entire game, required a late interception just to stay alive and then needed four overtimes to finish the job.
The Lady Bulldogs (7-6) got all of it done, beating Lanett High School 18-12 in flag football at Morgan-Washburn Stadium on Oct. 27.
Jaela Holmes threw three touchdown passes for Opelika, including a 56-yard strike with 54 seconds left in regulation to force overtime and the game-winner in the fourth extra period.
The matchup between Class 6A Opelika and the Lady Panthers (7-4), a Class 2A school that competes in Class 1A-4A in flag football, proved to be a tremendous test for both teams, which competed in postseason play in their respective classifications this week.
“I really was in shock because we’ve never gone into overtime before,” Opelika head coach Tiara Harris said. “I was really proud of the girls for just continuing to fight. I told them, ‘You guys want it? You’re going to have to go get it. Keep working.’”
Lanett grabbed the lead early. Aubree Cheeks intercepted an Opelika pass at the Opelika 15 yard line with 10:33 left in the first quarter and returned it to the 8, setting up Markala Bailey’s 1-yard TD run with 8:52 left in the quarter. The extra-point attempt was no good, but the Lady Panthers’ 6-0 lead held up for most of the night.
Lanett’s defense came up with another takeaway six seconds into the second quarter. Makenley James intercepted a pass at the Opelika 30 yard line and returned it to the 17. The Lady Bulldogs got the ball right back on the very next play, when Makayla Shambry intercepted a Lanett pass at the Opelika 10 yard line with 11:07 left in the second quarter.
Opelika then drove nearly the length of the field, but the Lady Panthers’ defense stopped them on fourth-and-goal and took over at its own 6 yard line.
Lanett threatened again late in the third quarter. Jennifer Trana-Hernandez jumped an Opelika pass near the Opelika 34 yard line with 2:01 left in the period and returned it to the 10, but the Lady Bulldogs made a goal-line stand, stopping Lanett on fourth-and-goal from the Opelika 1 yard line and taking over with 11:54 left in the fourth quarter.
“I’m really proud of the defense,” Harris said. “Going into it, we told them that a lot of those girls are really quick. Sometimes our defense will get in a moment where they kind of get stuck and they don’t know which way to go. [Tuesday], they really got the hang of it, and they were stopping it. That’s exactly what we needed them to do.”
The Lady Panthers were driving to put the game away when Mariah Jones intercepted a pass at the Opelika 4 yard line with 1:14 left. She returned it 17 yards to the Opelika 21 to give the Lady Bulldogs one last chance.
Opelika made the most of it. With 54 seconds to go, Holmes launched a deep ball toward Kaiden Sallie. A Lanett defender misjudged the flight of the ball, and Sallie went up over her, came down with it and turned on the jets the rest of the way for a 56-yard TD.
The extra-point pass fell just incomplete, leaving the game tied 6-6 and sending it to overtime.
Harris didn’t see the catch. She was on the sideline tending to an injured player who was bleeding when the play happened.
“Initially, all I heard was everybody screaming,” Harris said. “I didn’t know where the screams were coming from. Once I turned around and saw it, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, she scored, she got the ball,’ because we had been working on that so hard in practice and she works really, really hard.”
Sallie said she knew once she had the ball that no one would catch her. She was quick to share the credit, saying she was proud of “not only me catching a touchdown, but Jaela making that pass as well.”
Holmes struck again on the Lady Bulldogs’ first overtime possession, finding Jones for a 10-yard TD. The extra-point pass was incomplete, and Lanett answered. Ny’kayjah Davis floated a pass over the Opelika defense to Trana-Hernandez, who made a beautiful snag for an 8-yard score. The Lady Panthers’ extra-point attempt was no good, and it was 12-12.
Neither team could break through in the second or third overtimes. Opelika’s Brooklyn Wilson intercepted a Lanett pass on the very first play of the second overtime, but Bailey returned the favor for the Lady Panthers, picking off a fourth-down pass near the goal line.
Beginning in the third overtime, each team got one play from its opponent’s 5 yard line to score. Lanett went first and nearly punched it in on a run, but an Opelika defender snatched the ball carrier’s flag just before she reached the end zone. Opelika’s try came up empty as well.
In the fourth overtime, Holmes broke the deadlock. She rolled out of the pocket, pulled several Lanett defenders toward her and lobbed a short pass over their heads to Jones for the TD and an 18-12 lead.
The Lady Panthers had one play left, and it came agonizingly close. Davis’ pass reached the hands of two Lanett receivers in the end zone, but with so many bodies in their line of sight, neither could get a clean look at the ball, and it fell incomplete to end the game.
Sallie said the Lady Bulldogs kept their composure through a long stretch where little went their way by treating the second half as a fresh start.
“We really just treated the game, especially in the second half, like it’s 0-0,” Sallie said. “Something we talk about in practice is just hard work and going full speed. If you mess up full speed, OK, but if you half do it, that’s not good.”
Harris said the overtime battle was good preparation for the postseason. Opelika opens the playoffs on the road against Alma Bryant High School (9-4) in Irvington on Nov. 3.
“I felt like that was a really good win to take right into the playoffs,” Harris said. “I wanted them to understand that even going into the playoffs, you can never stop playing down to the last second because you never really know what may happen.”
That result was not available before the Observer’s Tuesday press deadline.
