SPANISH FORT — It took 48 minutes of regulation and five extra plays to settle, but the first meeting between the Fairhope Pirates and Spanish Fort Toros went into the books Friday as a 12-6 SFHS home victory.

The Pirates kicked two field goals to bracket a Toro touchdown with a missed point-after in the first half. But the second half went scoreless to send it into overtime.

"The bottom line is we made a lot of mistakes, but our kids played 60 snaps of relentless football," said Toros coach Bryant Vincent. "That's what we preached all week and that's what they did and I couldn't be more proud of them. Tonight made me realize that we have even more leadership and fight in us than I thought."

Fairhope coach David Faulkner was disappointed in the result, but not in the effort and intensity of his team.

"Positive thing is we played hard, the negative is we didn't play smart," he said. "We made too many unforced errors to overcome a good football team like Spanish Fort. They have a tremendous football team and we wish them all the best. The effort was there. We just need to be a more disciplined football team, need to execute better and clean it up mentally. And I believe we will. We will be OK."

Otis Smith scored the winning TD on a 10-yard sweep to the left on the Toros' first play in overtime. The Pirates had the first OT series possession but failed to score before a fourth-down field goal was blocked.

For the full story, see our Wednesday, September 1 edition.