A cool evening highlighted Florala and Pleasant Home’s spring football game Thursday night.

The Wildcats’ junior varsity squad struck first in a 6-0 win after the first quarter. Pleasant Home bounced back in varsity action as it took a 22-0 lead to win, 22-16.

PHS coach Cody McCain said the effort was good.

“The main thing you look for in this is you try to see what your conditioning is like,” McCain said. “We were trying to run an increased tempo with some big boys. It wears on them.

“I thought we had a pretty good rotation on the defensive line getting those big buys out to rest a little bit,” he said. “On the offensive side of the ball, we were able to rotate our skill guys in to keep the others fresh.”

FHS coach Justin Jones said he got to see a lot of guys play.

“We had a bunch of guys play both ways last year who played one way tonight,” Jones said. “We wanted to see everybody play, as far as who can help us in the future going forward — who we can count on to make us be a little bit better in the fall.”

On Florala’s second possession of the first quarter, Wildcats’ quarterback Khalen Ball scampered 69 yards for a touchdown with 1:02 left for the winning score.

Pleasant Home had a good drive going in its first possession, but fumbled the ball away at the 5:23 mark.

To start varsity play, the Wildcats and Eagles traded possessions in their first series of the second quarter.

Pleasant Home quarterback Jon Cole Chesser saw an opening through his big-boy offensive line and took it 75 yards for the score with 6:34 left in the half. After converting a two-point conversion, the Eagles led 8-0

Running out of the option offense, the Wildcats put together a good first drive, taking the ball all the way down to the PHS 21-yard line.

However, an incomplete pass netted a turnover on downs to give the ball back to the Eagles.

At the half, PHS led 8-0.

Florala and Pleasant Home traded punts on their first possession of the third quarter.

The Eagles recovered a fumble, and Chesser took over as he scored from 30 yards bobbing and weaving through Florala’s defense to help give PHS a 16-0 lead.

Chesser scored Pleasant Home’s final touchdown of the night with nine minutes left in the fourth quarter on a 23-yard pass to Troy Fantroy.

Florala didn’t back down as the Wildcats scored a TD on a 1-yard scamper from Kyle Price with about 5:50 left.

FHS scored its 16th point with 55 seconds left on a 22-yard pass from Price to Tamaris Jamison.