Straughn coaches will meet with Alabama High School Athletic Association officials today to learn what penalties were assessed to the Tigers’ program, following last week’s brouhaha in the third quarter.

The Star-News will have a complete story of today’s decision by the AHSAA on our website and in tomorrow’s edition of the newspaper.

SHS head football coach Trent Taylor said the meeting today will be held at 10 a.m. and from there, “we’ll see what happens,” noting that whatever happens, the team will get right back to business preparing for Southside-Selma today at practice.

“We’ve got plans in place both ways,” Taylor said. “It’s just one of those unfortunate things that happened. I think anytime something like that happens, you’re going to have the emotions of the game of football itself. It’s an aggressive game.

“I think when you look at the video, it just so happened to involve our quarterback (Chase Short) and you want your kids to be defensive, but they’ve just got to be more aware of what the rules are,” he said.

With 3.6 seconds left in the third quarter, the Tigers had just scored a touchdown to put them ahead of W.S. Neal 36-14.

On the ensuing kickoff, players began to fight, but the situation was quickly resolved as coaches rushed on the field to push players, who may have been on the field, back on the sidelines.

“While I’m disappointed that there was even one (a fight), at the same time, I’m proud that there wasn’t any more than what there was,” Taylor said. “I think you have to give both schools, the kids and coaches a lot of credit that that happened at the end of the third quarter. Then, they continued to play a whole nother quarter in what turned out to be a very tight ball game.”

As he did last week, Taylor defended Short.

“I even thought Chase handled it as well as he could,” he said. “He was trying to get away from that particular moment. It seemed like a volitile situation. He was doing eveything he could to get back here where there was some security.”

After the fight took place, there were no more incidents between both teams.

Taylor said that “speaks volumes about both sides.”

“It’s just unfortunate,” he said. “You hate it. Those kids who were involved will pay the consequences. Sometimes those lessons in life that you learn the most from are the toughest.”