More history was made for a young St. Michael Catholic football program Thursday night in Mobile when the Cardinal football team collected a 38-25 win over UMS-Wright to set a regular-season record for wins with nine.

In just its seventh varsity season, St. Michael also achieved its highest ranking in the Alabama Sports Writers Association state poll where the Cardinals have been the sixth-ranked team in Class 4A in four polls, entering Weeks 5, 6, 9 and 10. St. Michael’s previous highest ranking was No. 10 entering Week 3 of the 2021 season and the Cardinals have also spent three weeks at No. 7, two weeks at No. 8 and one week at No. 10 this year.

Three seasons ago was also Philip Rivers’ first year at the helm of the St. Michael program where the 17-year NFL veteran has now amassed a 26-14 overall record and the Cardinals’ first two trips to the postseason. St. Michael is set to kick off this year’s playoffs at its new on-campus stadium in Fairhope next week where the Cardinals will have a first-round rematch against the Handley Tigers from Region 3.

Rivers told WOTM TV’s Mickey Shadrix and Butch Barker that Thursday’s regular-season finale against the UMS-Wright Bulldogs certainly prepares St. Michael for the postseason opener.

“They’re very similar teams in terms of style, and we played Handley last year in the first round and we struggled against them. They had 25 seniors and they got after us pretty good but they’ve got eight seniors just like we do so it’s a younger team in Handley but a heck of a group,” Rivers said postgame. “The coach there does a great job, Coach (Larry) Strain, but now they’ve gotta make the four-and-a-half-hour trip to us so hopefully that works to our advantage but it will be a tough first-round opponent. But they all are; when you get into the postseason, everybody’s good.”

Familiar faces deal damage for Cardinals

The Cardinals were propelled to a non-region victory Thursday night thanks in part to their usual suspects. Junior receivers Brody Jones (19 and 3 yards) and Tucker Tomlinson (43 yards) caught touchdown passes from sophomore quarterback Gunner Rivers as junior running back Noah Moss collected rushing touchdowns of 43 and 3 yards to help the St. Michael offense register at least 30 points for the eighth game this season.

Gunner has been near the top of MaxPreps’ state passing leaderboards all year and entered the regular-season finale ranked No. 4. According to the Wild Cardinal Network, Gunner registered 320 yards on 17-of-25 passing Thursday night to finish the regular season with 2,805 passing yards on 191 completions and 27 touchdowns.

In just his eighth game of the year, Moss used 125 rushing yards and 2 touchdowns against UMS-Wright to push his junior season numbers so far to 1,134 rushing yards on 139 carries with 17 touchdowns. With a 6-catch, 159-yard night, Jones increased his season totals to 1,209 receiving yards on 78 catches with 12 touchdowns and Tomlison increased to 809 receiving yards on 42 catches with 12 touchdowns thanks to a 4-catch, 92-yard contest.

Week 11 wraps up Friday night where the final playoff spots in Class 6A Region 1 will be determined. Stay tuned for more regular-season roundups and postseason previews.