Four Shelby County teams took the field at Shelby County High School last Thursday and Friday night to take part in 2002’s version of a jamboree.

Calera 14, Vincent 6

First on the docket was Calera and Vincent, two in-county and Class 2A rivals.

Vincent made an early mistake, fumbling the ball around mid-field on its first possession.

Calera took advantage of that mistake, driving the ball down the field behind the running of fullbacks John Adams and Paul Delbridge.

Jay Haynes scored on a quarterback sneak and Gary Goggins tacked on the PAT to give Calera a 7-0 lead.

Vincent struck back with a score of their own when quarterback Adam Goodwin hit Andre McKinney with a 70-yard pass for the touchdown. Vincent missed the two point conversion try, leaving the score 7-6.

Calera’s next score was set up by a 50-yard pass reception by C.J. Pearson from Haynes. Lewis McNeal scored on an option and Goggins added the PAT to give Calera a 14-6 lead at the end of the first quarter.

That would end the scoring on the night with the rest of the game turning into a defensive battle.

Vincent missed an opportunity early in the game when a long run was called back due to a clipping call. Tailback Draper Yowe rambled down to the one yard line before the run was called back.

According to Vincent head coach Dwight Spradley, his team has a lot to work on.

&uot;We didn’t play well at all,&uot; Spradley said. &uot;Not to take anything away from Calera. They took it to us. They played with a lot more intensity than we did, and they are a much-improved team from a year ago.

&uot;We have a lot of inexperience,&uot; Spradley said. &uot;We’re not young, but we are inexperienced. For about 13 or 14 of our players, that was they first time they started a high school football game.&uot;

Spradley said he and his staff hope to have mistakes ironed out by his first game Thursday night at Chelsea.

&uot;We looked at the film, and we see the mistakes we made and we hoped to improve on those mistakes,&uot; Spradley said.

As for the Eagles, Calera head coach Ken Adams said he was impressed with the way his team performed.

&uot;This year there’s just a different feeling out on the field,&uot; Adams said. &uot;This team is full of guys who are very excited to be playing. We have more coaches helping and that combined with the kids’ enthusiasm could take us a long way this year.&uot;

Adams said his team was able to come away from the jamboree healthy, but with a few problems to solve before the Eagles’ opener against Verbena Friday night.

&uot;We’ve got some secondary issues we have to work out,&uot; Adams said. &uot;But, most of the mistakes we made were aggressive mistakes.&uot;

Vincent’s junior varsity team defeated Calera’s 8-0.

Freshman Desmond Yowe had two long runs and quarterback Steven Adams completed passes to Kit Barnes and Cordero Chapman to set up the score.

Chapman scored from 10 yards out and Adams added the two point conversion to give the junior Yellow jackets the win.

Isabella 14, Montevallo 0

In the second game last Thursday night, Montevallo took on Isabella and came away with loss, 14-0.

Head coach Charlie Boren said that score can be deceiving, however.

&uot;We are concentrating more on the season opener against Leeds,&uot; Boren said. &uot;Isabella runs a Notre Dame box, and we didn’t really prepare for it. We pointed out a few things to our kids about 10 minutes before the game started.&uot;

Boren said he was impressed with the defensive play of inside linebacker Robert Horn.

Montevallo opens the regular season Thursday night at home against rival Leeds.

&uot;It will be a tough game,&uot; Boren said. &uot;Leeds will not be as talented as last year because they lost two great running backs, but they are always strong.&uot;

Editor’s note: Stats from the SCHS game were not provided as of presstime. SCHS will open the regular season at Tarrant Friday night