With a trip to the state semifinals on the line, Baldwin County representatives including Bayside Academy in Class 3A and St. Michael Catholic in Class 4A were set to hit the road for a second-straight week as the AHSAA playoffs whittle down from eight teams to four in Classes 1A-6A and four to two in Class 7A.

Below are details on the Admirals’ and Cardinals’ third-round matchups with information from the Alabama High School Football Historical Society, follow @GCMSportsAL on social media for immediate updates and visit gulfcoastmedia.com/sports for full coverage of the AHSAA State Football Championships.

Bayside Academy Admirals at Southside-Selma Panthers

Bayside Academy enters the third round with history against its opponent where the Admirals have won all three previous meetings with the Southside-Selma Panthers, including a first-round playoff win in 2021, 37-36, and regular-season wins in 2013 (39-6) and 2012 (39-14).

This year’s meeting will feature top-10 units squaring off against each other. Bayside Academy will enter ranked No. 3 in points allowed per game with 147 over 12 games for an average of 12.3 points allowed per game and Southside-Selma will enter ranked No. 9 in points scored per game with 499 over 12 games for an average of 41.6 points per game. The Panthers scored more than 50 points in six games and the Admirals have limited opponents to 7 points or fewer in seven games.

Southside-Selma dropped its first two games of the year and hasn’t lost again to earn the first state quarterfinal appearance in school history on a 10-game winning streak. The Panthers went 4-1 in home games this season and are 3-1 all-time at home in the postseason where the lone loss was dealt by Bayside Academy in 2021.

The Admirals have a 5-1 record in away games this year and are 11-9 all-time on the road in the postseason with a 1-2 mark in away quarterfinal games where the lone win came over Gordo, 17-14, in 2015.

Both teams also beat two common opponents this season, including Hillcrest-Evergreen (28-20 for Bayside Academy and 36-35 for Southside-Selma) and Hale County (36-6 for Bayside Academy and 56-6 for Southside-Selma).

St. Michael Catholic Cardinals at Fairfield Preparatory Tigers

Despite a young St. Michael team in its seventh season as a varsity program and its first-ever state quarterfinal, the Cardinals’ third-round matchup against Fairfield also has history.

In their 28th postseason all-time, the Tigers are 0-3 in the quarterfinals with an 0-1 mark at home following a 55-0 loss to Deshler in 1987.

The last time Fairfield was in the third round, the Athens Golden Eagles ended the Tigers’ season in 2004. Five years prior, Athens was led to a 28-14 win over Phillips High School of Birmingham in the second round of the 1999 state playoffs. The Golden Eagles were quarterbacked by the St. Michael head coach Rivers, who was an all-state selection for his father and head coach Steve Rivers, and the Phillips Red Raiders’ offensive coordinator is currently the head coach of the Fairfield Tigers, Shepherd Skanes, who is in his third year as a high school head coach after a 16-year stretch as a coach in the college ranks.

Now the head coach of the Cardinals, Philip Rivers’ team has won all seven away games it’s played this season including wins over both common opponents (46-28 over W.S. Neal and 38-24 over Pleasant Grove). Fairfield went 4-2 in home games this year and also beat W.S. Neal last week (23-22) but fell to Pleasant Grove (49-13) in the regular season.

St. Michael’s lone loss this season so far has come to Jackson, who was ranked No. 1 all season, and that was the only game the Cardinals didn’t score at least 20 points en route to a single-season scoring record. The 468 total points scored by St. Michael so far surpassed last year’s total of 412 which topped the previous best of 316 from 2021.

The Cardinals won five games over their first three varsity seasons, none of which came in region play. Now in the fourth season under Philip Rivers, St. Michael has collected 33 wins compared to 14 losses — including the first two postseason victories in program history — where 17 wins have come in region play.