Piedmont, AL – Under recently promoted head coach, Spring Garden turns heads with run to final of Piedmont 7-on-7. Handley wins for third year in a row
PIEDMONT 7-ON-7 TOURNAMENT
Semifinals
Handley 23, Piedmont B 2
Spring Garden 18, Piedmont 16
Championship
Handley 29, Spring Garden 2
By Joe Medley
How will things go for Spring Garden football in year one without long-time head coach Jason Howard Barrett?
Hard to say, but the first three weeks under Barrett Ragsdale ended with a major boost of encouragement.
The Panthers lost 29-2 to Class 4A contender Handley in the final of Saturday’s Piedmont 7-on-7 tournament, but Class 1A Spring Garden reaching the final marked the day’s biggest surprise.
The Panthers beat Class 4A contender Jacksonville and perennial Class 3A contender Piedmont in the quarterfinals and semifinals, respectively. They rebounded from a 35-0 loss to Jacksonville in pool play.
Spring Garden’s eye-catching result in the 7-on-7 comes just more than three weeks after Howard’s June 30 announcement that he was leaving for a coaching job in Georgia. Howard coached the Panthers 20 years over two stints, leading them to the playoffs 12 times.
Howard led Spring Garden to the Class 2A quarterfinals in 2020 plus three other quarterfinal runs in a four-year span. Those marked the longest playoff runs in program history.
Barrett, Spring Garden’s defensive coordinator for 12 years, was officially elevated to head coach July 10.
Twelve days later, Ragsdale and his Panthers walked off of Piedmont’s Field of Champions with a trophy.
Ragsdale called recent weeks “a whirlwind.”
“A lot of people think, well, I’ve been here for a long time, so we can keep on going normal,” he said. “We have, but going from the passenger’s seat to the driver’s seat, so to speak, it’s been fun. It’s been hectic.
“Now, I think we get closer to the season, like, today shows us that little bit of normal. We created some normal today. It makes you feel better about it.”
A 7-on7, essentially a passing drill with no linemen involved, does not real football make. Still, Spring Garden’s skill players got far against athletes from bigger winning programs.
“The guys today just showed me that they’ve got what I knew they had, that fight in them,” Ragsdale said. “We come out here and played maybe 10 kids, rolling all day. We played a lot of teams that are platooning us on offense and defense and … it’s pretty hot out here, and they fought through and won some big games today.
“Just the fight the kids had today was the biggest thing.”
A 7-on7 highlights quarterbacks, and Chapel Pope showed out as more than a quarterback.
“Chapel today, he played quarterback. He played slot, played split,” Ragsdale said. “Just moving him around and letting him get the ball, he had a great day. He had some huge catches.
“In the Piedmont game (Spring Garden won 18-16), he had a huge catch, a third-down conversion, a deep route that kept us in that game. That’s the one that sticks out.”
Pope played receiver when older brother Chaz quarterbacked the Panthers and moved after Chaz was injured in 2021. As for whether he’ll move around during the season, he and Ragsdale wouldn’t say.
“You’ve got to take that up with coach,” Pope said.
As for how things have felt around the program with Ragsdale in charge, Pope said he senses little change.
“We hit it running,” Pope said. “Nothing stopped. We just swapped coaches. We’re going to miss Coach Howard, but we’ve got a good one stepping in.”
Handley
Handley is a Piedmont 7-on-7 regular and has come in varying stages of revamping after graduation losses. Saturday was no different, and neither was the result.
Quarterback Cannon Kyles led the Tigers to another title, and ninth-year Tigers coach Larry Strain came away encouraged.
“I’m really concerned about our team,” he said. “We lost all of our DBs, all of our wide receivers from last year. We lost one outside linebacker, but all of our front is back, and our offensive linemen are back, so there’s really some question marks about whether we can defend in the secondary and whether we’ve got people who can catch.
“The kids have worked extremely hard during the course of the year to get us to this point. This is our fourth or fifth passing camp that we’ve made it to, and I thought we had a good day.”
Piedmont
Aside from the coaching change from Steve Smith to Jonathan Miller, Piedmont looks to replace nine starters on offense and six on defense.
Losses include quarterback Jack Hayes, who finished with fourth major Alabama career quarterbacking records.
Still, Piedmont made the semifinals of another 7-on-7.
“I thought we improved defensively from our first 7-on-7, and that was good to see,” Miller said. “At times, we were our own worst enemy on the offensive side, but there were a lot of bright spots. It was a long day, and I thought our kids competed from the most part.
‘We just have to clean a few things up.”
Jacksonville
The Golden Eagles had five wins in each of their 7-on-7s before Saturday’s, so the quarterfinal loss to Spring Garden came as a shock.
Jacksonville went without two key skill players. Wide receiver Kydric Fisher was on a recruiting visit to Southeast Missouri State, and receiver/defensive back Demonte Sinclair is on vacation, Jacksonville coach Clint Smith said.
“Spring Garden did what they had to do to win the game, so hats off to them,” Smith said. “One of the great things about 7-on-7s is just the competition. We come in after lunch, after we sat for a while, being able to get in there and get yourself up to be able to go play again, and we did not do that right there. …
“At the same time, you’ve got to make sure when it does happen, you learn from it and make corrections from it and get yourself ready to go and play when you have to play.”
White Plains
The Wildcats beat Randolph County in the tourney opener and lost to Piedmont B in the quarterfinals. White Plains finished 3-2-1 overall, and first-year White Plains coach Blake Jennings saw improvement from the FCA 7-on-7, nearly two weeks ago.
“Our biggest thing was come compete today,” Jennings said. “Keep fighting and get better.
“One of the things we’ve talked about is body language with these guys.
“First day at FCA, kids were getting beat and wouldn’t do their job, and they would hang their heads. Today, one of the biggest things for me is, it’s about body language. It’s about carrying yourself the right way and competing all of the time. That’s what we’re trying to instill in these guys, and they really did today.”
Ranburne
Ranburne carried the No. 7 seed in the tournament and beat No. 10 Sand Rock before falling to Piedmont varsity,
“We got better, got lots of good reps,” Ranburne coach Stephen Bailey said. “Best we’ve played offensively there in a few years. I thought we competed well on both sides of the ball.”
Munford
Eighth seed Munford beat No. 9 Handley B to open the tournament then lost to Handley varsity.
“We competed,” Munford coach Michael Easley said. “Our biggest thing, our defense was consistent all day long, which is why we came, so they can see live reps. Offensively, we got better as the day went along. Timing was much better, which, a lot of times, that’s what it is in the passing game.
“We were really happy. We found this more productive than we did a couple of years ago and only lost one game and almost won it.”
