The Florala Wildcats put up a strong fight against Class 3A Houston Academy, but fell 42-39 on Friday night in Florala.

“I’m just pure sick after that game,” Florala head coach Scott Mason said. “They scored a last minute touchdown to win the game. As a spectator, that’s one the best football games you will see, but as a coach it just makes me sick to lose like that.”

Florala held a slim lead late in the game, but Houston Academy made a scoring drive with just over a minute left in the game.

“We threw for about 400 yards tonight,” Mason said. “We had a chance to score there at the end, but we had a dropped pass that would have been a touchdown.”

Mason said he was proud of the way the team played.

“That’s a very good football team,” Mason said. “They are a 3A playoff team and we should have beat them. We just couldn’t stop them, but they couldn’t stop us. We stopped ourselves a few times, but they didn’t stop us. We didn’t lose that game we just ran out of time.”

The way the offense moved the ball was something that Mason said he was pleased with.

“I thought we threw the ball great,” Mason said. “We threw the ball really well tonight and made some big plays. We ran the ball well at times, but we were just give out at the end.”

Mason said that the Wildcats are really starting to click.

“We finally got some kids back that have been out for awhile,” Mason said. “We are about 75 percent healthy right now. Finally healthy enough to make a difference.”

Overall, Mason said he liked what he saw from his team.

“We played our hearts out tonight,” Mason said. “This a a tough loss and I’m just sick over this. We had our chances, but just couldn’t get it there at the end. We will get back after it and get ready for a big region game next week.”

Florala will be back in action next week for homecoming against the Red Level Tigers.