The Wetumpka football team rebounded in a big way on Friday night.
Wetumpka defeated Park Crossing, 27-8, in an AHSAA Class 6A, Region 2 matchup. With the win, the Indians move to 3-1 overall and 1-1 in region play.
Head coach Bear Woods was happy with how his team rebounded after suffering a heartbreaking loss to Pike Road last week in a region shootout.
“It’s good to get a win and good to get a region win,” Woods said. “The only way to get over a game, especially like one last week, is to just get out here and do it again. That’s why I love football. We are thankful to leave out of here with a win which we prepared hard for.”
Wetumpka’s defense has been a boom or bust defense all season long, and that was on full display to start the game. On Park Crossing’s first drive of the game, the Thunderbirds drove right down the field and scored on a short touchdown run by Solomon Beebe.
They completed a pass for the two-point conversion and led 8-0 with 9:36 left in the first quarter.
That touchdown and two-point conversion was the only time Park Crossing threatened to score. Wetumpka held the Thunderbirds to zero points the rest of the game, and Park Crossing never reached the red zone again in the game.
“We made zero adjustments,” Woods said. “Coach (Tyler) Johnson had the perfect play call and we just didn’t make the play at first. We called the same plays the next drive and our kids executed. That’s part of it. It’s going to happen. Thankfully it happened on the first drive so we could go ahead and get it out of the way. They just did what their jobs were.”
As well as the Indians’ defense played the rest of the night, the offense played just as well. Wetumpka scored two touchdowns in the first half, one on a 8-yard touchdown pass from Nate Rogers to Quashawn Wright and one on a Mike Dillard 1-yard touchdown run.
The Indians led, 14-8, at halftime.
On the Indians’ second possession of the third quarter, Rogers hit Malik Owens for a 50-yard touchdown pass, and the score stayed 20-8 until midway through the fourth quarter. Dillard scored his second touchdown run, a 3-yard run, to put the game away at 27-8.
“What I saw more than anything was them controlling the game by controlling the ball,” Woods said. “We needed to be able to put the game at our tempo and we were able to do that tonight. That was the most impressive thing our offense did tonight.”
