GADSDEN – For the past three seasons, the Coosa Christian Conquerors haven’t had many reasons to celebrate. Coming off a 2-8 record last year, the Conquerors turned to first-year head coach Teddy Helms to help get the football program on its feet.

Helms is off to a good start, as Coosa Christian defeated Gaylesville 19-12 Thursday night.

“Our kids are hard fighters and they deserve this,” Helms said. “In years past, we quit. If there was any adversity, we quit. Tonight, they never quit.

“It’s a big confidence booster. We haven’t had any confidence in the last three years, but we’ve coached them up and we feel like they’re building a little confidence. We knew Gaylesville was a playoff team from last year, and if we could pull it off (the win), it would go a long way.”

In the early going, however, it looked as if things were going to go the Trojans’ way.

Gaylesville (0-1) took its opening drive and marched 80 yards in 12 plays, capped off by Caleb McCord’s 2-yard touchdown run. Luke Murphy’s extra point was no good, keeping the score at 6-0 in the Trojans’ favor with 5:04 left in the first quarter.

The scoring drive didn’t come without a price, as junior running back Shcoven Warren pulled up lame with his right knee.

Warren was the first of several injuries the Trojans had on the night.

“Depth is a major concern with us,” Gaylesville coach Brian Clowdis said. “If we could stay healthy, then we’d be all right, but tonight, anything that could happen, it did. Shcoven goes down, Jon (Lemons) goes down, Cain (Higgins) is probably about half speed (with a groin pull) … it just snowballed.”

It didn’t take long for the Conquerors (1-0) to answer. After the kickoff, it took just two plays for Coosa Christian to score and take the lead. Sophomore quarterback Justin Langdale connected on a 44-yard scoring strike to Josh Manning to tie game at 6-6 with 4:27 left in the first quarter. A.T. Thomas connected on the extra point to give the Conquerors a 7-6 lead.

Thomas made his presence felt in a big way with 4:49 left before halftime, as he galloped 66 yards for a touchdown on a 3rd-and-15 play from the Conquerors’ own 34-yardline. He missed the extra point, but Coosa had increased its lead to 13-6.

Thomas finished the night rushing for 87 yards on six carries and a score.

The Conquerors began to pull away on their first drive of the second half. Langdale capped off an 11 play, 58-yard drive with a zig-zagging 18-yard touchdown run to the right side with 6:41 left in the third. The Conquerors went for two, but Langdale’s pass fell incomplete to keep the score at 19-6.

Langendale ended the game passing for 190 of the Conquerors’ 327 total yards. He was 15-for-28 with a touchdown in the air and another on the ground.

“He’s got the will to win” Helms said of his quarterback. “He’s a very heady player. We didn’t know if we were going to have him this summer. He was off playing baseball, and we didn’t know if he was going to stick with baseball all the time, but he’s just such an athlete.”

Gaylesville answered with a scoring drive on its next possession. McCord scored his second touchdown of the game – this one from 18 yards – with 4:10 left in the third to finish off a 6 play, 59-yard drive. Cain Higgins tried to rush in for the two-point conversion, but was denied, keeping the score at 19-12.

McCord led Gaylesville with 116 yards on 15 carries with two touchdowns.

Despite having trouble stopping Coosa’s offense the entire game, the Trojans caught a break with 5:23 left as Higgins forced a fumble. He recovered the ball at the Trojans’ own 30 and raced to the right sideline all the way to the Conquerors’ 19.

However, the Coosa defense stiffened, and on a 4th-and-3 play from the 12, the Conquerors forced McCord to lose two yards and turn the ball over on downs with 3:53 to go.

Manning almost sealed the Trojans’ fate with a 44-yard burst into Gaylesville territory with 2:23 remaining. Gaylesville’s defense came up with a stop, but the Trojan offense only had 11.6 seconds remaining to make something happen at their own 32.

Senior Tyler Willis put the exclamation point on the Conquerors’ win with an interception of Higgins, which ended the game.

“We didn’t make plays when we needed to make plays, but bottom line is depth killed us,” Clowdis said. “I thought they played hard. They’re always going to play hard, but we just didn’t do what we needed to do to win the ball game.

“A lot of that is there’s a lot of our kids who haven’t played a whole lot. It was just little things that can be fixed, but it was just a bad night. It was one of those deals where it snowballed from the get-go and it kept snowballing.”

Coosa Christian 19, Gaylesville 12

14 1st Downs 15

137 Yds. Rush 248

190 Yds. Pass. 12

327 Total Yds. 260

28 Pass. Att. 10

15 Pass. Comp. 3

0 Pass. Int. 2

2-1 Fumbles-Lost 8-2

7-42 Penalties-Yds. 9-62

3-30 Punts-Avg. 2-29.5