Wildcat whipping

MOUNDVILLE – Hale County coach Charles Moody didn’t predict the score, but he wasn’t surprised by the result.

The Wildcats beat Winfield 50-18 in a Class 4A matchup Friday night.

“We are happy any time we win,” Moody said. “There was no surprise. We didn’t make any adjustments.”

Quarterback Christopher Shelley went down with an injury on the first drive of the game, but it didn’t shake up the pace of the Hale County offense.

“I really don’t want to comment on exactly what it was, but we are praying we get him back next week,” Moody said. “We brought in our backup guy and he managed the game. He did a real good job.”

Wildcats running back Xavien Banks ran for 164 yards on 23 carries and scored two touchdowns.

Hale County backup quarterback Reese Culpepper finished with six completions for 51 yards and a touchdown.

“All my running backs our awesome,” Moody said. “They come and they work hard. They understand what they need to do and they get better every week, and that’s all we can ask for.”

Winfield coach David McKinney said the Pirates need to look inward to find a new direction.

“You can do all what you want to do in the world, but you got to have something down in you to be a winner,” McKinney said. “You find out a lot about your team, your coaches and everybody when you’re down. This is a gut check.”

McKinney praised Hale County’s performance, but traced the Pirates’ miscues back to mental mistakes.

“It was stuff we’ve been doing for two years and we didn’t execute,” McKinney said. “We’re going to look at the film real close and see who wants to be a winner and who doesn’t.”

Hale County (1-0) travels to Northside next Friday. Winfield (1-1) will host Cordova.

“We didn’t execute and I’m the person that’s supposed to get them to execute,” McKinney said. “We’re going to get this thing figured out.”