Pine Hill Nudges Red Devils 12-6

November 2, 1951

The Pine Hill Bulldogs would win the Class-A Region-2 state championship as voted by the Birmingham News in 1951. One of the games they played that season was against the Linden Red Devils. Linden came into the game with a 2-4-1 record and had won their previous two games.

The fact that Pine Hill won the game by a score of 12-7 only tells a small part of what really happened in the game. Bulldog Center, Bobby Ricketts, would get the first score of the game in the first quarter on a blocked punt which he picked up and ran 30 yards for the touchdown.

Linden would come back to tie the score in the second quarter on a 56 yard run by Don Peppenhorst. Later in the second period Ricketts would block another punt and this time teammate Bryant Harris would fall on the ball in the end zone for the winning score.

On the evening Linden would punt the ball a total of eight times into a stiff and steady wind and on six of those occasions the punt would be blocked by Pine Hill. That is correct. Six blocked punts by the Bulldogs. Another note of interest is that the coach for Pine Hill in 1951 was Glenn Daniel, the all-time leader in coaching wins in Alabama.