Gardendale quarterback Dallas Tidwell (13) beats the officials to the touchdown signal as Jesse Blackburn (88) runs it in for the score during the Rockets’ 37-13 win at Jackson-Olin on Thursday. It was the only Rocket touchdown for which Tidwell didn’t pass or run himself.

Gardendale sputtered for a bit and took a while to fire up all engines, but eventually ran away with a convincing 37-13 win at Jackson-Olin Thursday night to finish off regional competition.

Quarterback Dallas Tidwell had the big night, throwing touchdown passes to Ja’Micheal Willis and Warren Delanie, as well as scoring on two 1-yard sneak plays.

The victory kept the Rockets (6-3, 5-2 region) alive to possibly take the third seed in the the first round of the playoffs, depending on the result of Friday night’s game between Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa and Northridge. (Hillcrest won, setting up a meeting for the Rockets with top-ranked Hoover at Regions Park.)

Coach Chris Fancher was  much happier with his squad’s second-half performance than the first.

“I thought we didn’t do a real good job in the first half. I thought we did some good things defensively, some offensively and some on special teams, but overall it was a poor effort,” Fancher said. “But our assistant coaches did a great job at halftime making some adjustments, and they came out and completely shut ‘em down in the second half.”

Gardendale got on the board early in the second quarter when they capped off a 70-yard drive with a 3-yard handoff to Jesse Blackburn, who went in untouched for the score.

After a Rocket punt pinned the Mustangs down on their own 1-yard line, Jeffrey McGraw brought down J-O running back Reginald Thomas in the end zone for a safety.

 The Rockets then took advantage of good field position when Trey Wade intercepted a Mustang pass at the hosts’ 7. Two plays later, Tidwell ran the sneak over the line.

J-O scored just before intermission, set up by a 49-yard pass from Darrion Savage to Demetrius Comack, who got behind the Gardendale secondary. Savage then scored when he ran it in from the 13.

The Rockets took advantage of another Mustang turnover, to start the second half when J-O fumbled away the kickoff. Tidwell connected with Willis for a 23-yard touchdown toss.

Jackson-Olin came back, again set up by a long Savage pass; he then sneaked in from the 1.

But that was all for the Mustangs, as Gardendale took control the rest of the way. Tidwell finished off another long drive, which featured long passes to Willis and Christian Green, with a 1-yard sneak.

Willis blocked a J-O punt deep in their territory midway through the final quarter, which ended with Tidwell finding Delanie from 16 yards away.

Green finished with 107 yards on 2 rushes.

Tidwell was 12-for-17 for 170 yards. Willis caught five passes for 80 yards.

Adam Powers led the Rocket defense with 10 solo tackles, two assists, an interception and a fumble recovery. Kyle Large had nine solos and four assists, and Matt Oliver had seven solos and seven assists.

Note: This version contains late updates from our print edition regarding the Rockets’ first-round playoff opponent.