General

Third-ranked 6A Oxford whips 7A Florence to wrap up 10-0 regular season

Class 6A No. 3 Oxford capped a perfect regular season with a 34-10 win at 7A Florence on Friday with Mason Mims throwing for 216 yards and three touchdowns and Caleb Wynn running for 110 yards and a pair of scores.

The Yellow Jackets finished 10-0 for the third time in program history. Oxford was 10-0 in 2016 before falling in the opening round of the playoffs to Muscle Shoals. Oxford had 9-0 regular seasons before finishing 14-0 with state titles in 1988 and 1993 and was 9-0 with a second-round playoff loss in 1972. The Jackets were 9-0-1 in the 1971 regular season and finished 10-1-1 with a second-round playoff loss.

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Stingy defense lifts Homewood to victory over James Clemens

Homewood’s defensive game plan focused on stopping the James Clemens running attach.

Mission accomplished.

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Caleb Chesser, Spanish Fort pick off St. Paul’s, claim No. 2 seed

It was only fitting that a stellar defensive play decided the game between Class 6A, Region 1 rivals Spanish Fort and St. Paul’s.

Spanish Fort senior safety Caleb Chesser picked off a pass and returned it 19 yards for the winning touchdown in the Toros’ 27-13 road win. The game was tied with just over six minutes to play when Chesser tracked a high pass that tipped off the fingers of receiver Tank Jones. Chesser made the interception and raced down the right sideline for the deciding score.

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Spain Park completes 1st perfect season by beating Gardendale

Spain Park quarterback Brock Bradley threw a pair of touchdowns and ran for another as the Class 6A, No. 4-ranked Jaguars earned a 35-12 road victory over Gardendale in Friday’s regular-season finale at Driver Stadium.

Spain Park (10-0 overall, 6-0 Class 6A, Region 3) gave up a field goal on the Rockets’ opening drive, but the Jags struggled offensive in the first half before putting together a 10-play, 66-yard drive that ended a 1-yard scoring run by Bradley.

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Vestavia Hills evens record with big win over Class 6A No. 5 Clay-Chalkville

Charlie Taaffe threw for 237 yards and two scores as Vestavia Hills downed Class 6A No. 5 Clay-Chalkville 28-14 at home on Friday night to close out the regular season at 5-5.

Taaffe added 89 yards on the ground on 11 carries, with a 2-yard touchdown run. The sophomore connected with Bruce Littleton on scoring passes from 33 and 34 yards. Littleton also scored on a 35-yard run and had 71 yards rushing in the win.

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3 takeaways from Auburn men’s basketball’s 102-70 exhibition win over Florida Atlantic

Friday night felt like a party inside Neville Arena.

It was the first time Auburn men’s basketball played a game in its home arena since March 9 and the game gave fans plenty to cheer for. Auburn defeated Florida Atlantic 102-70 Friday night, finishing its slate of charity exhibitions 2-0.

It’s always wise to be cautious when evaluating a team based off an exhibition game, but Auburn showed promise in its first game of the season at Neville Arena. Now as the regular season begins, the Tigers shift their focus to a matchup with Vermont on Nov. 6.

Here are three takeaways from Friday’s game:

Still shaking off the rust

No one expects everything to look perfect in an exhibition game and that certainly wasn’t the case for either team Friday night.

For Auburn, some early sloppiness kept the game back and forth to start. Auburn had nine turnovers in the first half, leading to seven FAU points.

Many of the turnovers looked to be miscommunications or poor timing on cuts and passes. Those mistakes are somewhat expected in a preseason exhibition like this, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating for the coaching staff.

On the other end, Auburn forced its fair share of turnovers too and played a good defensive game overall. There seemed to be few small miscommunications and bad rotations on defense at the beginning of the game, but like the turnovers, didn‘t look like anything that can’t be fixed.

Auburn’s athleticism makes the defense go

The defense may not be a finished product yet from a scheme and execution standpoint, but Auburn’s athletes will make it hard for any team to score on them.

Auburn’s on-ball defense was one of the highlights of the game. FAU had a hard time finding good matchups on offense, and apart from a few bad switches and miscommunications, FAU scored hardly any easy baskets.

Auburn held FAU to 40% shooting from the field and forced 19 turnovers. More importantly, Auburn scored 26 points off those turnovers, helping widen its halftime lead.

While the overall defensive structure could still use some improvement, the athleticism Auburn has to defend with gives it a high ceiling.

Both freshmen can and will play

Through two exhibition games, both Tahaad Pettiford and Jahki Howard have shown they didn’t need much time to adjust to college basketball.

Each scored in double figures both games and against FAU, both excited the crowd as Bruce Pearl predicted.

Pettiford spent significant time at point guard, playing 16 minutes before leaving the game with what looked to be some discomfort in his right leg. While on the floor, he scored 12 points and had five assists, shooting 3-for- from the floor and 2-for-5 from 3-point range.

Coming off the bench with Pettiford, Howard scored 14 points on 5-for-10 shooting. Pearl has raved about his athleticism throughout the preseason and it was on full display Friday night.

His quickness affected the game both offensively and defensively. He scored in a variety of ways and was active on the perimeter with four steals.

While it’s understandable for Pearl to want to avoid rushing the freshmen into lofty roles, both made it clear in the exhibitions that they have the talent to contribute.

Mistakes and growing pains are inevitable with young players, but as Pettiford and Howard continue to get experience, it’s going to get difficult to keep them off the floor.

Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkus or email him at [email protected]m

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A century after Native Americans got the right to vote, they could put Trump or Harris over the top

RED SPRINGS, N.C. (AP) — Native American communities were decisive voting blocs in key states in 2020, and with the 2024 race remaining stubbornly close both campaigns have tried to mobilize Native voters in the final weeks of the presidential election.

But when it comes to messaging, the two campaigns could not be more different, many Native voters said. It’s been 100 years since Native Americans were given the right to vote, with the passage of the Snyder Act in 1924, and whichever campaign is able to harness their power in this election could swing some of the most hotly contested counties in the country.

In swing states like Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan, and Nevada, the candidates — particularly Vice President Kamala Harris — have been targeting Native Americans with radio ads and events on tribal lands featuring speakers like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump Jr.

Native American voters tend to favor Democrats, but they’re more likely to vote Republican than Latinos or African Americans, said Gabriel R. Sanchez, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He said they are one of the least partisan and youngest voting demographics in the country, often motivated by issues that directly impact their communities, like land rights and environmental protections.

In 2020, the Biden administration campaigned in several tribal nations in critical states like Wisconsin and Arizona, and precincts on tribal lands there helped narrowly tip the election for the Democrats. “Arizona was kind of like a textbook example of what that could look like if you make those early investments,” Sanchez said.

As part of a $370 million ad campaign released this month, including on several reservations, Harris said the U.S. should honor treaty rights and uphold tribal sovereignty. Crystal Echo Hawk, CEO of IllumiNative, a nonprofit that works to increase the visibility of Native Americans, said those commitments, along with the economy and environmental protections, are the top issues Native voters have identified in IllumiNative’s surveys.

Echo Hawk said those investments could pay off again for the Democrats. “I haven’t seen the same kind of targeted messaging and outreach from the Trump campaign,” she said. Harris also stands to inherit some of the goodwill left from the administrations of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, she said.

Obama increased consultation with tribes on matters like land protections and criminal justice, and Biden appointed more than 80 Native Americans to senior administration roles.

“The minute that the announcement came that Harris was stepping into the race, you saw people organize overnight,” Echo Hawk said. And Trump, she said, will have to contend with his reduction of Bears Ears National Monument by 85% and his revival of the Keystone XL pipeline, both unpopular with Indigenous peoples. “I think a lot of these people remember that,” she said.

On Friday, Biden formally apologized for the country’s support of Native American boarding schools and its legacy of abuse and cultural destruction. While seen as long overdue, it was met with praise from tribal leaders. On Saturday, vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will campaign in the Navajo Nation.

The Trump campaign hasn’t released ads targeting Native Americans, but U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, has stumped for the former president in Native communities in North Carolina, a swing state that was decided by less than one point in 2020.

On a crisp evening earlier this month, Mullin sat alongside Donald Trump Jr. and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat who recently announced she is joining the Republican Party, on a small stage in front of several bales of hay to take questions from an audience of a couple hundred people. They discussed issues ranging from the economy to tribal self-determination.

The event took place on a small farm in Red Springs, North Carolina, part of the traditional homelands of Mullin’s ancestors and current home to the Lumbee Tribe, a state-recognized tribe with about 55,000 members.

The federal recognition of the Lumbee has been opposed by several tribal nations, including the nearby Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and Mullin’s own tribe, the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. The Lumbee’s push for federal recognition has become a focal point for both campaigns and a rare issue where both parties agree. Last month, Trump said he would sign legislation granting federal recognition to the Lumbee. Harris called the Lumbee’s tribal chairman last week to discuss the legislation.

“This is an injustice that needs to be fixed when it comes to Lumbees,” Mullin told the crowd. “This is absolutely absurd. It needs to be done. I was so proud to hear President Trump say that he would sign it.”

But Mullin soon touched on one of the many areas where the two candidates differ: energy policy. Highlighting the fact that he believed a second Trump term would mean a better economy and lower energy costs, Mullin laid out Trump’s policy in one recognizable term that was echoed by the audience, “Drill, baby, drill.”

Both the Biden and Trump administrations pushed to produce more oil and gas than ever, including extractive energy projects that were opposed by Indigenous peoples. However, Native leaders have expressed concern that Trump is more likely to further erode protections for tribal lands.

Mullin suggested that if tribal nations are truly sovereign, they should be able to conduct energy extraction without the burden of federal intervention. He said just like the Lumbee’s fight for federal recognition, the rights of tribes to govern their own lands is the victim of federal bureaucracy.

“Why is tribal land treated like public land?” Mullin asked, questioning why the federal government should have any oversight on tribal nations that extract natural resources on their own lands. “You have natural resources being pulled out of the ground right across the fence from reservations. You have private land owners that are extremely wealthy and you have people that are literally starving inside reservations,” he said, comparing some to third-world countries.

He promised Trump would have a deep understanding of tribal sovereignty.

That message resonated with Robert Chavis Jr., a physical education teacher and Army veteran who was at the rally and will be voting for Trump. Chavis, a member of the Lumbee Tribe, said tribal nations aren’t just governments, they’re businesses, and the U.S. is no different. “I feel like you don’t need a politician in there. We need a businessman to run the country like it should be.”

But other Lumbee voters aren’t as convinced. At her art gallery a few miles away in Pembroke, Janice Locklear said Trump promised he would federally recognize the Lumbee last time he was in office, and she had no reason to believe he could accomplish it this time. But looking broader than her community, she said what Trump did on Jan. 6, 2021, represents a nationwide threat to democracy.

“He thought he could actually be a dictator, go in there and take over. Even though he had lost the election; he knew he had lost the election. So what do you think he’ll do this time,” she said.

Locklear said as a woman of color, she trusts that Harris will have a deeper understanding of the unique challenges facing Native Americans. “I’m sure she’s had to face the same problems we face,” Locklear said. “Discrimination, I’m sure she’s faced it.”

— By GRAHAM LEE BREWER Associated Press

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23-year-old man fatally shot Friday in Montgomery, police say

A homicide investigation is underway after a man was found shot to death Friday afternoon in Montgomery, police said.

Montgomery police and fire medics responded to the 1900 block of Gibbs Drive around 4:25 p.m. Friday on a report of a person shot, said Lt. David Wise.

At the scene, authorities found 23-year-old Montgomery resident Zachary McMeans with a fatal gunshot wound, Wise said.

McMeans was pronounced dead at the scene.

Further information on the homicide was not released.

Police asked anyone with information related to the investigation to call CrimeStopppers at 334-215-STOP, Secret Witness at 334-625-4000 or Montgomery police at 334-625-2831.

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Charles Henderson fined, forfeits 5 wins because of transfer rule violation

The Alabama High School Athletic Association announced on Friday night that Charles Henderson High School’s varsity football program has been fined and placed on probation for one year for playing an ineligible player in violation of the AHSAA Transfer Rule.

The Troy school also forfeits all games won that the ineligible student participated in, including five region wins – over Andalusia, Eufaula, Greenville, Headland and Carroll-Ozark. The Trojans are now 0-8 overall and 0-6 in Class 5A, Region 2. Charles Henderson had been the second seed behind Montgomery Catholic in region play.

The Region 2 qualifiers now are, in seeding order, Montgomery Catholic, Andalusia, Eufaula and Greenville.

Charles Henderson is the fourth school forced to forfeit games this season, along with Pike Liberal Arts (also in Pike County), Coosa Christian (for the second consecutive season) and Fultondale.

The ineligible player was assessed eight games of restitution plus a preseason contest for the games he participated in while ineligible.

The Trojans were closing out their regular season at Pike Road on Friday.

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