CLASS 5A STATE CHAMPIONSHIP

PULASKI ACADEMY 51, WHITE HALL 19

DECEMBER 3, LITTLE ROCK — A new era in Pulaski Academy football produced the same results.

The Bruins won their 10th state championship, tying Greenwood for the most during the modern playoff era, with a 51-19 win over White Hall in the Class 5A championship game at War Memorial Stadium.

In the first year under Anthony Lucas, Pulaski Academy finished 13-1 with its only loss to Lipscomb Academy of Nashville, Tenn., 64-28, which won the Tennessee Division II-AA state championship. Lucas was promoted to head coach in May after Kevin Kelley took a collegiate coaching job at Presbyterian College in South Carolina.

“I’m so happy, so grateful and truly blessed and happy for our senior class,” Lucas said. “These 15 seniors are well deserving. We never changed a thing. We start every year in January with our goal of winning another state championship. I thought it was going to be two other guys; Madison Taylor or Jason Wyatt to step in. God had another plan. They asked me to be the head coach, and I took it with open arms. I’m proud of our team.”

Under Lucas, the Bruins looked very similar to the previous nine champions at Pulaski Academy.

The Bruins still didn’t punt, on-side kicked about every kickoff and scored 748 points with their usual high-powered offense.

The championship game was a 5A-Central rematch, which Pulaski Academy won, 63-28, the first time but the game was tied at the half, 21-21.

Lucas turned the offense over to Adam Thrash, a record-setting quarterback at Pulaski Adademy during this playing days. They prepared to meet White Hall again.

“We started that game plan that next day after we played White Hall,” Lucas said. “Coach Thrash was so frustrated with the way we called plays the first half, and then the second half we went in and made those adjustments. He said ‘we’re probably going to meet them again, and I want to be ready.’ He made sure that he was ready if we met White Hall again. We got to together and made sure that wouldn’t happen again.”

They only recovered one on-side kick against White Hall in the championship game but it took a 11-7 lead after Vaughn Seelicke kicked a 31-yard field goal with 1:20 left in the first quarter to a 17-7 lead after Charlie Fiser threw a 33-yard touchdown pass 67 seconds later.

Tyson McCarrol recovered the on-side kick and four plays later, Fiser threw his scoring pass to Barker.

Pulaski Academy added two more scores in the second quarter on a 5-yard scoring run by Fiser with 6:39 left in the half and on a 24-yard touchdown pass from Fiser to Jaylin McKinney with 44 seconds left for a 30-7 lead.

White Hall scored twice in the third quarter, taking the opening kickoff of the second half and scoring on a 25-yard touchdown pass from Mathew Martinez to Steven Weston, and on a 12-yard touchdown toss from Martinez to Weston with 36 seconds left in the quarter to slice Pulaski Academy’s lead to 37-19.

Fiser threw an 80-yard touchdown pass to McKinney on Pulaski Academy’s next possession, and Joe Himon added a 19-yard scoring run to put the game away.

Fiser was selected the Most Valuable Player of the game after completing 17-of-36 passes for 386 yards and three touchdowns. He also ran for two scores.

Himon had 19 carries for 151 yards and two touchdowns, and caught two passes for 33 yards.

Pulaski Academy’s big-play offense had 684 yards on 73 plays with 20 of the plays accounting for 545 yards.

“Our kids played as hard as they could play,” White Hall head coach Bobby Bolding said. “They’re just better than us. In three years, we ran everything in our defensive playbook against them, and they just whipped us. We made too many mistakes; we got beat deep, fumbled, dropped some passes, you can’t do that.”