MOBILE—The safety that wasn't or the incompletion that was. If the 35-34 Region 2 loss to McGill-Toolen Friday at Lipscomb Stadium costs the Fairhope Pirates a playoff spot, a reversed call late in the third quarter will live in infamy on the Eastern Shore. Otherwise, it will have been just another dark and stormy night on the outskirts of Rag Swamp. However you parse it, what would have been a 30-7 Fairhope lead with possession was reversed resulting in an 89-yard scoring drive for Mc-T and a 28-14 margin for the Pirates with 45 seconds left in the third quarter. The Yellow Jackets went on to score 21 more points in the fourth-quarter to the Pirates' six. 

FHS built a 28-0 lead at the half starting with Bryan Bell's 2-yard TD to cap a 65-yard first-quarter drive that was set up by a 44-yard pass from Chase Domino to Nate Andrews. Fairhope made it 14-0 in the second period on a halfback pass to Elias Petties with five minutes until the half. A fumbled Mc-T kickoff return set up a 17-yard drive for FHS to make it 21-0 on Tanner Martin's 5-yard run. An interception by Deeandra Ervin set up the next FHS TD when Domino hit Bell for a 41-yard connection. Nick Cutrone hit his fourth extra point with 1:48 left in the half. Martin scored the final Pirate TD in the fourth period on a darting zig-zag from the Fairhope 36, but Cutrone's kick hit the right upright and was ruled no good to make it 34-21.

With about three minutes remaining in the game, Mc-T's Jason Smith hit Trey Roberts for a nine-yard TD  to make it 34-28. With 59 seconds left, Smith found Carl Lee deep over the middle who found his way through 76 yards of Fairhope traffic for the 34-34 equalizer. All hands were on deck to block Thomas Hamlin's fifth extra point of the night, but it sailed through leaving FHS with 52 seconds to go 61 yards after Bell's return. The Pirates moved the ball to the Jacket 35, but were then unable to stop the clock.

Fairhope head coach David Faulkner said his team needs to finish as well as start. "We need to learn how to finish ball games," he said. "You can't be up 28 points and give up big plays. Need to develop more of a killer instinct. But we have a lot of football ahead of us. We just need to work and get better."

Fairhope stays on the road with another Region 2 game at Satsuma next Friday. Mc-T travels to Baldwin County High for its second region game.