Dothan falls at Opelika

OPELIKA — Opelika defensive line coach T.J. Jackson was pacing up and down the coaches’ box on the Bulldogs sideline after a Torey Agee 11-yard sack blew up a Dothan scoring opportunity in the Bulldogs’ 28-11 win Friday night.

“We’re having a sack party,” Jackson said. “We’re having a sack party tonight.”
Opelika did, in fact, tally three sacks on the night, with the other two coming from Jamarlo Alford, and held the Tigers to only 65 yards rushing.

It was a return to an identity that the Bulldogs seemingly lost over season-opening defeats to Carver-Montgomery and Central: controlling both sides of the line of scrimmage.

Opelika (2-3, 2-1 Class 6A-Region 3) ran for 311 yards of its own, and its defense had an answer nearly every time Dothan (1-5, 0-4) posed a threat.

Still, head coach Brian Blackmon would like to see fewer of those three Tiger pass plays that went for more than 30 yards.

“We played OK. This was not a pretty win, but it was a win, and we’ll take it,” Blackmon said. “We’re still making some of the same mistakes.”

After Dothan’s Jeremy Lockett returned the game’s opening kickoff 61 yards, the Tigers lost 5 yards on three plays and Ryan Mullins knocked through a 41-yard field goal to put the visitors up 3-0.

Opelika stuffed Dothan on a fake punt fourth-and-1 on its next drive, and the Bulldogs answered with a steady dose of Cameron Hill, as the junior back toted the ball five times for 40 yards and plunged in from a yard to put Opelika up, 7-3.

Then came some fireworks.

On a third-and-11 from the Bulldogs’ 10 on their next drive, Hill took a handoff, burst through an initial scrum pile at about the 20 and took off down the left sideline, outrunning nearly everyone on the field and cutting back toward the middle before being dragged down at the 1.

That would be Hill’s last run on the night, as he left with a head injury after carrying eight times for 134 yards. Blackmon said Hill should be back to practice Monday.

Ryan Jordan punched the ball in from a yard to put Opelika up, 14-3, and then took the mantel from Hill for the rest of the evening.

Jordan, a converted safety who played his first game at running back three weeks ago, ran 15 times for 103 yards.

But on his 15th carry with 16 seconds to go in the game, the one that put him over 100, the sophomore took what appeared to be a serious injury to his left knee.

“He had a great night,” Blackmon said. “I just hope that everything’s going to be OK with him. Either way, we’ll take care of him.”

Dothan drew within 3 coming out of the half on one of those “big plays” Blackmon referenced.

Barnard McGhee took a lateral and found Gabriel Melton wide open for a 32-yard score, then he threw to Joseph Peterson for a 2-point conversion that brought the score to 14-11.

Melton finished with six catches for 150 yards on the night.

Opelika answered on a 1-yard plunge by Dalton Pritchett, then Pritchett found Braden Rogers for a 24-yard score at the beginning of the fourth to stretch the lead to 28-11.

Pritchett bounced back from his last-minute pick against Prattville last week, going 8-of-13 for 97 yards and the score.

Dothan had two more chances to make the game tighter, but the Bulldogs’ defense responded, first on the Agee sack and then on a Mitchell Mowery fumble recovery, Opelika’s first takeaway on the year.

Mowery led the Bulldogs with nine tackles.

Diante Thomas was 13-of-18 for 151 yards, and Peterson tallied 12 tackles and a forced fumble on defense. Kemp Reeves ran 14 times for 72 yards.

After the Bulldogs’ first 0-2 start in 21 years — and all the catastrophic rhetoric that went with it — they now sit third in the region and with a very real shot of making the playoffs.

“We’ve always had hope,” Blackmon said. “We’ll just get after it and try to stop making the same mistakes.”