DAPHNE, Ala.—The final score when the scoreboard clock struck 00:00 read “Leeds 49, Bayside 7.”

The Admirals’ football season came to a halt last Friday in the quarterfinals of the 3-A state playoffs, but pride-filled words of the team’s head coach tried to overshadow the disappointment of a season-ending loss.

“Nobody likes to lose. It’s not a fun thing to do,” Phil Lazenby said to his team after the final chapter of the historic season was written. This was his fourth season as Bayside Academy football coach. “It’s been one of the most fun seasons I’ve ever had. You guys have nothing to be ashamed of.

“No other private school in the whole area was playing tonight. You were playing tonight … We’re not down here anymore. We’re up here.”

A season of firsts

For the first time in the football program’s 10-year history, the Admirals won nine games, hosted a playoff game and reached the quarterfinals of the post-season.

“It was a lot of firsts for the kids who have been here the last two or three years,” Lazenby said, noting that in 2008 the team had its first winning season and in 2009 the team won its first playoff game.

The Admirals were under-sized and under-manned all year, going against bigger offensive and defensive lines, and having to play at times six players on both the offensive and defensive sides of the game because of the small size of the school compared to other 3-A schools, Lazenby said.

Bayside had 42 players on the roster for the school’s final game last Friday, while its opponent, Leeds High School, had 55.

“You’ll see some players playing both sides of the ball in 3-A football, but because it’s a numbers game, the smaller the school the fewer players and athletes you have,” Lazenby said, who has a record of 27-19 as Bayside’s head coach. “Our numbers are really that of a middle-of-the-road 2-A school. Each of our students counts as 1.35 students because we’re a private school. In the four academic grades that play varsity football, we don’t have but just over 100 boys, so we’ve got 42 of them out there playing football, which is just under 50 percent of all the boys in the school.”

Under Alabama High School Athletics Association rules, the total enrollment of private schools — like Bayside — is multiplied by 1.35 and the new theoretical enrollment number determines the school’s athletic classification.

According to AHSAA Assistant Director Alan Mitchell, the states of Tennessee and Georgia use a multiplier rule format for private schools, and there are two main reasons for the use.

“One of the reasons (for the multiplier rule) is a higher percentage of students at private schools participate in athletics,” Mitchell said. “Their school’s eligibility is usually larger (than public schools). They’re usually the whole city in which they’re located, so they have a bigger drawing area (for kids to attend their school) than public schools.”

The road to Chatom

The team’s players didn’t let a numbers game hold them back. They won their first five games, including a 27-20 victory against region rival T.R. Miller — which finished with a record of 8-4 and reached the playoffs — in the season’s second game, to officially state to the 3-A Region 1 that the Admirals had arrived.

“The confidence that you gain by being able to play a top-notch program like T.R. Miller and actually win it, that was a huge game for us and a great confidence builder,” Lazenby said.

The Admirals lost two straight games to region foes Trinity Presbyterian — who finished the season with an 11-2 record and won a share of the region championship — and Washington County — who went 9-3 and held the other region title share. The game against Washington County was a road game, and the Admirals lost 34-21, a disappointing result in a game that could have given Bayside’s team a share of the region crown.

However, the Admirals bounced back and won two more region games to earn a spot in the state playoffs for the third consecutive season.

They finished the regular season with seven wins and three losses — tying the most wins in the school’s history — and they headed to play Abbeville in the first round of the post-season.

“We watched them on video and Abbeville was a very talented team, and we were worried about the talent they had, but our kids came out and believed they could win this ball game,” Lazenby said.

A Cinderella’s night

A resounding 42-6 win moved the Admirals into the second round of the playoffs for the second straight year.

But staring ahead of them was another trip to Chatom to play region rival and team they lost to earlier in the season: Washington County.

“It felt like we had gotten better as a football team,” Lazenby said about the feeling heading into the rematch. “They had lost their fullback — who was a good player — but we played the first game without our starting running back, Thomas Buchanon.”

Bayside fell behind 15-0 in the first half, but fought back on the shoulders — or legs — of senior running back Ryan Owens and his three touchdown scores and 136 rushing yards.

“He played great,” Lazenby said. “The whole team played great that night. It was a special night.”

Bayside led 29-28 with less than three minutes to go, and Owens broke loose on his third touchdown scamper — a 45-yard score — to give Bayside breathing room and, ultimately, the winning score.

“It was one of those where he got hit a couple of times and broke through and just outran them,” Lazenby said. “He’s more than just a blazer. He has good speed but not great speed, but he just found a way to outrun the defenders.”

Much like Owens found a way to get into the end zone, Bayside found a way to re-write past history and win 36-30 over Washington County, the first victory in school history against a region rival, Lazenby said.

Finding a way

Finding a way — even when the all-important football factors of height and weight were against them — was a central theme behind the season.

Senior defensive linemen Josh Vernor and Brennan Young weighed approximately 165 pounds, and they stood at around 5 feet, 7 inches, which is very under-sized for the defensive line.

“They were very small, so they had to use the one thing they had: quickness,” Lazenby said. “It was a choice of either go with size or go with quickness, and I didn’t have any size, so I went with quickness.”

The Admirals were led by three senior playmakers: quarterback and safety Camp Campbell and Buchanon and Owens, who doubled up as running backs and corner backs for the team.

But they had younger players who made an impact as well. Junior running back and linebacker Scooter Blake, junior wide receiver and defensive-back Geoffrey Steinbaugh, junior offensive lineman and linebacker Jeff Jennings and sophomore running back and linebacker Johnathan Walton all received a considerable amount of playing time on offense and defense.

“Anytime you’ve got kids that gain experience during the year, you’re going to have a better team next year,” Lazenby said. “The chemistry was great in this bunch, and a lot of it has to do with that, but it also has to do with experience. Coming back, I’ve got 17 kids that have started at least two games who are coming back, and I think around 14 of them started year-round. We’ve got a great nucleus of kids who are coming back.”

The Admirals scored a record 446 points and rushed for more than 3,000 yards throughout the season, setting records in both categories.

But another thing accomplished from the season, Lazenby said, is that the statewide perception of Bayside’s football program has changed.

“There’s no more jokes about football being a side-show over here,” Lazenby said. “We actually know how to play football.”

A season’s effect

The season had a resounding effect on the school community as a whole, according to school Headmaster Tom Johnson, and few sports can ignite the level of pride that football can.

“This is a community,” Johnson said. “A team like this is a unification not only for their particular team, but for the entire school … Football has it’s own unique spirit. Football brings a spirit to the school that you can’t get with some other sports.”

The Admirals couldn’t overcome every hurdle placed in front of them, losing to Leeds in the quarterfinals, but even when the game — and season — seemed all but over, Lazenby instilled the same ideas of pride and composure that he wanted the Admirals to show all season.

“We put in some of our younger players, and I told them just to ‘play hard.’ I told them at the beginning of the game the same thing I always tell them, ‘Play hard. Believe in your teammates. Keep your composure when things go wrong, because they inevitably will.’”

The Daphne-based school hopes to continue next year where this year’s team left off, and Lazenby said he expects the program to improve just like it has the last four years.

“We’ve always told (the players), ‘To build a program you can’t have lapses. You always have to build on what you have done.’ That’s what they’ve done,” Lazenby said. “Their playoff runs have always gone further and I don’t expect anything less. As far as potential, we have the potential to have a really good football team.”

Either way, Lazenby, the team and the school community will never forget the landmark three-month ride that they called their 2010 football season.

“When you remember this season, you will remember a bunch of kids that came together to overcome a lot of odds,” Lazenby said to his team after the season came to an end.

“A lot of odds.”

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