FOLEY – Although storms delayed the start of the Foley 7-on-7 Showdown at the end of last week, nearly two dozen teams converged on OWA and the Foley Sports Tourism Complex to battle for the top spot.

The event, hosted annually by the Lions since 2010, brought football squads from all over the Alabama Gulf Coast – as well as the Pensacola area and a team from Franklinton, Louisiana this year – and pitted quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers against linebackers, cornerbacks and safeties.

“It’s been awesome, we had a lot of guys come, we had 23 teams show up today and they brought about 27 kids each, so we had roughly around 600 kids,” Foley Head Coach Deric Scott said after the first day of competition Wednesday. “We’re excited for all the people that came out today and participated, the weather was kind of bad earlier, but it tapered off and we were able to get all of our games in.”

Teams played three games in pool play on day one and had two more pool play games scheduled for day two before the brackets were finalized for championship play.

Foley was among seven teams to earn three wins in three tries Wednesday afternoon. They were joined by Thompson in Pool 1, Hewitt-Trussville and Saraland from Pool 2, Fairhope and Spanish Fort from Pool 3 and McAdory from Pool 4.

Locally, the Lions beat Moss Point, Enterprise and Pine Forest, the Pirates took down Booker T. Washington, Baldwin County High and Williamson and Spanish Fort registered victories over Baldwin County High, McGill-Toolen and Booker T. Washington.

Scott said he was appreciative of the situational football his players are able to experience on the field.

“We’re just excited for the opportunity to go compete against quality opponents and see what our young people are able to do in some adverse situations,” Scott said. “It’s helps us to work on a specific aspect of our game which is our passing offense and our passing defense, so it really affords us the opportunity to improve in those areas without having to physically contact each other, but it gives us a lot of work and it gives you a bunch of reps against other people. When you go against each other, you can only get so good of a look.”