By Erik Harris
For The Tribune
NORTHPORT — Everything Hewitt-Trussville was last week when it stormed back to defeat Gardendale in its season opener seemed to be absent Friday night at Wildcat Stadium in Northport.
VIDEO: Game highlights, reaction from Coach Floyd, Zac Thomas, and Jalen Williams
Class 7A, Region 3 play seemed to be off to a great start, but a massive penalty problem plagued the Huskies to the point of dropping a game in which they led by 15 points. Tuscaloosa County took advantage of the repetitive Hewitt-Trussville miscues and came away with a 28-21 victory.
“We should have had a lot more points in the first half,” said Huskies head coach Josh Floyd. “Penalty after penalty after penalty, it seemed like every time we had a big play, we had a penalty. It’s hard to win a football game like that.”
The Huskies (1-1) ran 45 first-half plays, three of them featuring junior quarterback Zac Thomas breaking the goal line. Thomas ran in from 15 and four yards out in the first quarter, but his one-yard plunge with more than nine minutes remaining in the half was the final highlight of the Hewitt-Trussville evening.
“I feel like we totally won that game, but the penalties killed us and that’s how we lost,” Thomas said. “If we didn’t have those penalties, we probably would have won.”
From then on the Huskies faithful had to watch their 21-6 first-half lead slowly dwindle. The up-tempo offense only managed 27 snaps in the final 24 minutes of play and failed to convert a single third down over that stretch.
Meanwhile, a limited Wildcat offense managed to piece long drives together and eventually take the game over.
“We definitely should have won this game,” Floyd said. “We could have scored a lot more points.”
Tuscaloosa County (2-0) executed a 10-play drive that tied the game at 21 with 7:39 remaining in the third. Running back Derrick Burns finished it off with an eight-yard score.
It didn’t take quite the effort on Tuscaloosa County’s next scoring drive. Seth Franks found a streaking Eddie Williams Jr. for the 39-yard go-ahead touchdown with 1:59 remaining in the contest.
Hewitt-Trussville made the last of its countless mistakes on the ensuing kickoff. The Huskies return man put the ball on the turf and Tuscaloosa County’s Alex Payne recovered it on Hewitt-Trussville 25 with fewer than two minutes remaining.
Williams Jr. got the Wildcats started with a 95-yard kickoff return to end the first quarter. The quick strike made it 14-6 in favor of the good guys at the end of one. The wideout caused problems for the visitors all night. He had three scores, two receiving and one return.
Thomas finished the game 17-for-25 through the air for 269 yards. He added 62 yards rushing with three touchdowns.
His favorite target was Dalton Meadows, who caught seven passes for 95 yards.
Hewitt-Trussville must clean up its special teams and fix its penalty problem before it hosts Vestavia Hills next Friday at Jack Wood Stadium.