Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By ZACHARY SEIFTER/ Staff Writer

Maplesville High School fell at the hands of Sweet Water High School in its third-round playoff matchup on Nov. 19. The Bulldogs defeated the Red Devils 41-7.

Sweet Water came ready to play from the opening whistle. On the opening kickoff, the Bulldogs returned the ball all the way down to the Maplesville 9-yard line. After a penalty by Maplesville, Sweet Water punched the ball in to take a 7-0 lead less than a minute into the game.

The Red Devils quickly responded, as Jakavion Jackson scored on Maplesville’s opening drive, taking a run 51 yards to tie the game.

After that play, Sweet Water took over the game.

Jaland Lewis and Christian Dunning led the way for a Bulldogs rushing attack that the Red Devils could not stop. The Bulldogs scored three unanswered touchdowns while the defense thwarted a late scoring threat by Maplesville to give Sweet Water a 27-7 lead at halftime.

In the second half, the Sweet Water rushing attack continued to give Maplesville fits. The Red Devils offense was unable to keep pace, as the Bulldogs defense bottled up the Maplesville ground game.

Sweet Water scored two more touchdowns before the final whistle, finishing off the victory in dominant fashion to advance to the fourth round.

“Sweet Water, they deserve a lot of credit,” Maplesville head coach Brad Abbott said. “They’re a complete team … We played them two years ago, and you can just tell by watching film that they’ve gotten better. They’re more confident. It’s everything about them. They were just better than they were two years ago, and it showed tonight, definitely. They outplayed us in every aspect of the game.”

While Maplesville is disappointed with the final result of the game, the Red Devils had a terrific 2021 season. They finished with a regular season record of 9-1 and won their region. That success allowed them to reach the playoffs, where they won two games before falling in this one.

“It’s going to hurt because they had bigger dreams,” Abbott said. “But if they really look back and are realistic about this year, they’ll realize they surpassed people’s expectation for them, and they really did this town and this community proud by the way they played this year.”

The Red Devils finished the 2021 season with a final record of 11-2.