ROGERSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — Two teams entered Friday night undefeated in Class 3A region 8 but only one could stay that way.

Lauderdale County and Mars Hill traded some early touchdowns, then the Tigers got a huge stop late on fourth down to seal the 20-14 win over the Panthers to give them their second region title in the past three years. So for that, Lauderdale County is the week eight Tyler Mann Team of the Week!

“To get the chance to be two undefeated teams playing for a region championship, that’s what you dream about, it’s what you want. I kept reminding them of how we got there and what they did to get there the guys bought in, they were super focused, defensively we keyed up on everything,” Lauderdale County football head coach Jeff Mason said.

“We knew what we had to do and it was going to take a full team effort. It meant a lot because we put in day-in and day-out effort, came out, did what we had to do and the effort showed. It gives us a bunch of confidence but you know, it all comes back to the little things, we’ve got to put in more work because we’re not done with what we set out to do at the start of the season,” Lauderdale County junior linebacker Skylar Tucker added.

“Offense did their jobs, our goal was to maintain the clock and we did just that and we put points on the board when we needed to. How physical they were and we matched that and one upped them with the physical-ness and the atmosphere, being there at Mars Hill will help us later on in the playoffs. It was unreal, something I’ve never felt before. It means more than ever, we knew that we had something special this year and it’s not over yet,” Lauderdale County senior wide receiver Tuck Green said.

“We’ve made deep playoff runs here and stuff and that’s what those games are like, they come down to the end, they’re going to come down to who makes a mistake, who turns the ball over, who gets a penalty, who blows an assignment. You just have to play as hard as you can and as close to perfect as possible. Focus on us getting better, us doing what we’re supposed to, us doing it better every week, I mean that’s our goal every Friday night. I tell them before we come out, I say our goal here is to leave this field better than we were last Friday, and that will be the same thing all the way through, as long as we can go. Every team is special, but this one is really special as I told you back in the summer, from knowing these guys and honestly, it’s what I expected from them. So very, very proud of them,” Mason added.

Lauderdale County will host Colbert Heights on Friday.