St. James Trojans savor first ever football championship

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - Thursday was a day that members of the St. James football team will remember for the rest of their lives. The Trojans took down Piedmont in the Alabama Class 3A State Championship to with the school’s first ever state title in football!

“We’ve been in existence fifty years,” said head football coach Jimmy Perry. “It’s the first state championships in football we’ve ever won, and it’s because of these guys right here and those guys out there in that field.”

Senior Cosner Harrison has been grinding it out with the Trojans as a running back for four years.

“We worked so hard and to finally win one and all our work’s paying off,” he exclaimed. “It feels amazing.”

It didn’t look good for the Trojans’ chances during the first half. At the midway point, they were trailing 20-10.

The first half was “real slow,” according to junior KJ Jackson, the team quarterback, who chalked it up to “a little bit of nerves.”

With halftime over, Jackson said “everybody put faith in me and the line gave me some extra time, and it was all up from there.”

Up, indeed. The player flipped the switch in the second half, outscoring Piedmont by a whopping 35-7!

“It only took me 43 years to get one,” Coach Perry jokes, adding that he didn’t know if he had another 43 years in him to get a second championship.

Perry recalled three wins while he was on staff at Lee High School, but said this one was the “sweetest of all of them.”

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