Story By Jason Bowen

A late score prevented the Scottsboro football team from making a little history in its TopCat rivalry with Fort Payne.

The Wildcats from DeKalb County scored the go-ahead touchdown inside the final five minutes and surived a strange final few seconds to edge visiting Scottsboro 21-19 in the 91st all-time meeting between the teams.

Scottsboro (0-1) was going for its first three-game winning streak in the series since the 1976-78 seasons, but Fort Payne’s lone sustained drive of the night allowed it to regain possession of the TopCat Trophy.

“It’s a tough loss,” said Scottsboro head coach Tyler Vann. “It’s a tough way to lose. We fought. I’m not mad at the fight, I’m not made at the effort, not made at the physicality. I thought defensively we played really good. We ran to the ball (and) we were physical. (Fort Payne) had a good plan. They showed more two-back and three in the core, sometimes four in the core (sets). We haven’t seen that from them, but I thought our guys did a really good job of adjusting on the fly to it and getting some stops. We’ve just got to do a better job of executing on offense.”

Scottsboro (0-1), which lost projected junior starting quarterback Noah Tolleson to a season-ending injury in fall practice, had three different players (Colton Harding, Jacobi Edmondson and Jayden Gilbert) take snaps Friday night. The Wildcats had 291 rushing yards — Edmondson ran for 163 yards on 19 carries and Jayden Gilbert had 146 yards on 16 carries — and passed for 43 yards, but 175 yards came on two carries and Vann said the Wildcats didn’t “win enough on first down” to sustatin drives.

“We scored 19 points, really 17, and that’s not who we are offensively,” he said. “Offensively I think we’re a lot better than we showed.”

The Wildcats’ touchdowns came via explosive plays. Edmondson’s career-long 95-yard touchdown run led to an early 7-0 Scottsboro lead following the first of Cole Rauchle’s two extra points. Fort Payne (1-0) tied the game on Carter Blalock’s 43-yard touchdown run with 2:29 left in the first quarter, which preceeded Scottsboro’s longest drive of the night, a 16-play, 7:17-minute 80-yard drive that resulted in Raeuchle’s 29-yard field goal on the final play of the first half.

Fort Payne took its first lead against Scottsboro in 11 quarters of play dating back to the teams’ 2022 matchup when Kaiden Adams scored on a 57-yard touchdown run with 20 seconds left in the third quarter, but Scottsboro answered on its next play from scrimamge on Jayden Gilbert’s 80-yard touchdown run to go back in front 17-14. 

After the teams traded three-and-outs, Fort Payne put together an eight-play, 84-yard drive, getting completions of 12, 29 and 12 yards by quarterback Blake Griggs and a 20-yard run from Blalock leading to Blalock’s go-ahead 1-yard touchdown run with 4:29 remaining.

Scottsboro moved from its 20-yard line to its 47 on its next possession, but four straight incompletions gave the Fort Payne the football and the chance to kneel out the clock. But an unsportsmanlike pentalty after the second down kneel down forced a dead ball, and Scottsboro called its final timeout after the third-down play to force a punt. The snap then went over the head of punter Fort Payne Hayden Chambers, who ran the ball out of the back of the end zone for a safety, cutting Fort Payne’s lead to 21-19 with 17 seconds left. After a free kick, Scottsboro completed a pass but a lateral to keep the play going was off the mark and time expired during the scrum for the errant lateral.