Division I-A
Southside Christian (12-1) vs. Allendale-Fairfax (12-1) The numbers: SSC averaged 39.1 points per game this season, allowed 13.7. A-F averaged 27.1 points per game and allowed 9. Losses: SSC's lone loss came to AAA Travelers Rest 20-14 in Week 0, A-F's lone loss came to Bamberg-Ehrhardt 27-20 in Week 7. Breakdown: I revealed earlier this week that I have two distinct personalities when it comes to football picking. There is Sir Einstein of Smartville, who went 16-0 picking first round match-ups and called the Division II finals as soon as the brackets were set. Then there's Bubba McDumbass, whose calls on the Division I semifinals were a giant bag of derp. When the playoffs began I wouldn't have picked these two teams and even last week, I figured they'd both lose. Southside Christian put together a season full of hallmark wins. They became the first Class A team stick a loss on Christ Church since 2011. It was the first time they'd beaten the Cavaliers in their 10-year history. Prior to that win, they were winning, but many of the games were reasonably close. Coach Jason Kaiser said that victory was a confidence boost for his players. They realized then that they could beat anyone. Since that time, they've just been destroying people. In the playoffs, they beat an improved Wagener-Salley team 63-14, a very good Williston-Elko team 56-32 and McBee, the odds-on favorite to win the whole thing (and inspiration for a dumb meme about power drills and goat masks) 56-26. I honestly didn't think they had the horses to control McBee's offense. The Panthers probably have more big, explosive plays than anyone in the state this year, but even if you limit those, their physical front and speedy backs can just wreck you with clusters of five and six yarders. Southside Christian trailed in the second quarter, but routed the Panthers after halftime. Not only did they shut down McBee's rushing attack, they picked apart what had been one of the best defenses in Class A. The week before, they were getting gashed by Williston-Elko's stable of runners (including Shakur Chisolm) but again, put the clamps down defensively and lit up a pretty athletic defense. Without question, the Sabres had the most balanced offense of any Class A playoff team. Junior signal-caller Clayton Coulter has over 2,200 yards passing now and running back Quintyn Reeder will likely be over 2,000 yards by the time Saturday's game concludes. I'm not going to beat a dead horse, since I've already beaten the horse, set it on fire and dragged it up-and-down Main Street on a four-wheeler, but this marks the fifth straight year we've had a private school as the upperstate champion. That obviously gives them some built-in advantages over their public school counterparts. The class of the Greenville County Upstate All-Stars has been Christ Church for four years running...they've been supplanted. Speaking of public school counterparts, Allendale-Fairfax will be the opponent for Southside Christian. I didn't realize it until I attended the Class A state championship press conference Monday, but the Tigers lost three players for the year with ACL tears before the season started. They included the reigning Class A Player of the Year, an all-state linebacker and an all-region defensive end. Obviously, Allendale-Fairfax has something that's in short supply in Class A...depth. They plugged the holes and kept on trucking, almost without missing a beat. The lone loss for the Tigers was to rival Bamberg-Ehrhardt and that came after they blew a 20-0 lead. There is nothing flashy about the Tigers. They play old school football...they aren't worried about out-scoring you, they'll get 20 or so, you won't get that many and that'll be that. They have a good running back in Kenny Smith, they run the Wishbone on offense (a real contrast to Southside Christian's four-wide spread) and just flog you defensively out of multiple fronts. They shut out a very potent Latta offense last week, they held an incredibly proficient Calhoun County offense to 20 and limited eight opponents this year to 10 or fewer points. In a year where it looked like Bamberg-Ehrhradt or Calhoun County would cruise to the lowerstate crown, the Tigers proved they were the best the low country had to offer. They should be proud of that...because I think that will be the last trophy on their mantle this year. Southside Christian pistol-whipping Williston and McBee the last two weeks demonstrated to me that no one is beating them. Good as the Tiger D is, you'll have to score more than a touchdown or two to beat the Sabres. Southside Christian has too much balance on offense and too much second-half finishing power. Like it or not... The Pick-Southside Christian Division II-A C.E. Murray (12-1) vs. Lamar (10-3) The numbers: C.E. Murray averaged 32 points per game this season, allowed 10.6. Lamar averaged 39 points per game and allowed 15.9. Losses: C.E. Murray's lone loss came to Cross 28-6 in Week 3, Lamar lost to AAA Harstville 47-12 in Week 1, AAA Darlington 43-31 in Week 3 and AA Andrew Jackson 16-14 in Week 6. Breakdown: This one is honestly almost too close to call. These are without question the best two teams in Division II-A football and both have peaked at just the right time. C.E Murray's story is a great one. The War Eagles have not had a winning season since 2004, had won two playoff games before this year (both in 1994) and have only had seven or eight winning seasons in their history. Beyond that, Greeleyville (home to C.E. Murray) was among the hardest hit areas of the state by storms and flooding in September and October. Almost every player on the team was either forced to live for a time in an emergency shelter (the school gym) or was trapped in their home by flood waters. They were out of school for almost two weeks and missed nearly a month on the field. The school, which doesn't have a lot of extras to start with, lost some football equipment in the floods. For this team to be playing for state shows a level of perseverance we should all applaud. On the field, the War Eagles keep it simple on offense...if by "simple" you mean "step on your face." They never throw the ball more than a handful of times a game (their leading receiver, tight end Detrell Rush, has eight grabs). They dominate the clock and keep the chains moving by lining up in the I and whipping you. They have a big, but athletic, offensive line and a running back in Isiah Odom that is like a crazy cross-breeding of a sledehammer and angry bees. Odom has 253 carries this year for 1,539 yards and 21 touchdowns. Almost all of those come right up the gut. For a little variety, quarterback Darius Rush averaged more than nine yards a tote and has nine touchdowns. He provides an outside speed compliment to Odom's between the tackles SMASH. Defensively, they are normally in a 4-3. They have good size up front and the players are penetrators, blowing up a lot of what opposing offenses do before they can get it going. On the back end they are very fast and they swarm to the ball. The night I saw them, they had two penalties and no turnovers, so don't count on them beating themselves. There isn't an ounce of quit in them either...they trailed a very good Lake View team late last week, but mounted a late drive and kicked a last-second field goal to win it. They already have several firsts this year (beating AAA Manning, beating Carvers Bay) and have added another with a first trip to state. Lamar, for years, has had one of the most balanced offenses in the state, but they've leaned heavily on the run this season. My undercover Lamar informant says that is a better fit actually...he thinks having guys who start both ways run routes on every offensive down wears them down late in games and particularly late in seasons. Hard to argue with him or with Coach Corey Fountain, since they are playing for state. A coach who played them said it looked like they were running the Wing-T out of they I. Fountain calls it a Flexbone...they go with three backs a lot and work in a lot of misdirection. They have a deep stable of backs, a quarterback (Decobie Durant) that can make plays with his legs (575 yards) and with his arm when needed (514 yards) and one of the state's ost explosive players in Tre Ceasar. He has 2,055 yards rushing, 28 scores on the ground, a receiving touchdown and two kick return scores. The total defensive numbers above don't fully tell you just how dominant they've been on that side of the ball. They gave up some big point totals to good AAA teams in Darlington and Hartsville. Since their sorta head scratcher loss against A.J., they've yielded 0 points to C.A. Johnson, six to Great Falls, HOLY CRAP 13 TO MCBEE, six to Blackville-Hilda, six to HKT and 14 to Ridge Spring-Monetta. Much like C.E. Murray, they have good size up front and guys behind them that fly around and make plays. I've had to think on this one all week...I think unless there are turnovers or big plays in the kicking game, this will be a very low-scoring game that goes quickly, given how they both run the ball. I kept looking for some little seperator and one finally presented itself. Ceasar left last week's game early with a hamstring injury. He may be fine, but that's an unknown. I give C.E. Murray the tiniest of edges on defense and I probably like Lamar's offense a little more since it has a little more variety in formation and plays. It's a lot different if Ceasar is limited in anyway. In a 14-10 kind of game... The Pick-C.E. Murray.
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Whether it was a longtime nemesis, a slew of injuries or long odds, Allendale-Fairfax and Southside Christian have been able to overcome this season. The two will meet Saturday at Benedict College for the Class A Division I state title.
Allendale-Fairfax Coach Eddie Ford was knocked for a loop before the season actually ever started. In his squad's early scrimmages, he had three starters go down with ACL tears. "I had one ACL tear in 11 years, then had three in a couple of weeks," he said. Among those lost for the year were reigning Class A Player of the Year Richard Garvin, an all-state linebacker and an all-region defensive end. At Class A schools, where many of the best players start both ways and play special teams, three rapid-fire injuries to top players would have snuffed out any shot at success. The Tigers, though, are especially blessed in terms of depth. "Our back-ups are not just Joe Blow players. We had guys step in and they did a great job," Ford said. The Tigers also had to deal with an issue that could have turned into a huge distraction. Star running back Shakur Chisolm left the program (and the school) after alleging that he was hazed at an August camp. He has since filed a lawsuit in relation to the matter. Ford said he and his team sealed that issue out and kept their focus on whoever was next on the schedule. "We can't control what happens on the outside of our program. We keep out focus on the inside," he said. Once the season started, the Tigers got on a roll early. Using a clock-eating, chain-moving Wing-T offense and one of the state's best defenses, Allendale-Fairfax ran out to a 6-0 record and yielded less than nine points a game. Then came a showdown with rival and, at the time, fellow unbeaten powerhouse Bamberg-Ehrhardt. The Tigers led by a 20-0 score in the third quarter, but let things get away from them and lost 27-20. That defeat cost them a region title and a top playoff seed. They finished 9-1, but then surprisingly struggled in the first round of the post-season with a Carvers Bay team that finished with a losing record, having to pull a 14-8 win out of the fire in overtime. That put the team on the road where they would face undefeated, high-scoring Calhoun County. It didn't feel like Allendale-Fairfax would have the offense to keep up with the Saints and they didn't...but you don't have to have your offense on the field to score points. The Tigers had two kick returns for touchdowns and had another touchdown set up by recovering an errant punt snap inside the Calhoun County 10 on the way to a 28-20 win. "We hadn't returned a kick-off for a touchdown in two years," Ford said. The Tigers shut-out the potent offense of Latta in the lowerstate title game to punch their ticket to Columbia. In doing so, they exorcised the demon of losing in the lowerstate finals for two straight years. "We had a chip on our shoulder losing (it) to years in a row," said player Mike Green. Southside Christian hasn't had to contend with injuries or off-field situations this year, what they dealt with was taking their program where it had never been before. The Sabres have only fielded a football team for 10 years. Prior to this year they had only two winning seasons and had never won a playoff game. Coach Jason Kaiser said his first objective upon his hiring a few years ago was to make the team stronger and tougher. "We're committed to the weight room. Strength and conditioning was basically non-existent before I got here," he said. The Sabres opened with a loss to AAA Travelers Rest. They then clicked off a couple of nice wins over struggling programs. They first started to serve notice that things would be different in 2015 with a nice 24-14 victory over a good Fox Creek team. The team was 5-1 when the vaunted Christ Church Cavaliers came to town on October 9. The Cavs had their state-record winning streak snapped at 55 games a few weeks earlier by AA Abbeville, but they still seemed to be headed toward a fifth-straight state championship...or they did until Southside Chrisitan took them down 16-13 in overtime. It was the first regular season loss to a Class A team in eight years for the Cavs. It was also Southside Christian's first win over Christ Church. "It was a big win for our program. We've gottenmore confidence as we've played this year," Kaiser said. That win seemed to light a fuse in the Cavs. They'd won several games close through the early part of the year, but with new confidence, they beat a good Whitmire team 41-0 and St. Joe's 42-16. They demonstrated excellent offensive balance, with quarterback Clayton Coulter throwing for more than 2,000 yards and running back Quintyn Reeder running for more than 1,500. The 9-1 regular season record was a quantum leap for the Sabres. "My freshman year we won four games, my sophomore year we won four, then we won six last year," said player Connor Holden. "This year, we've really stepped up." The level of play took another jump once the playoffs began. Southside Christian rolled Wagener-Salley 63-14, thumped a good Williston-Elko team 56-32, then knocked out McBee 56-26. In those last two games, Southside Christian trailed at one point, but completely dominated the second halves of both games and shut down two of the state's best rushing attacks. Coming into the year, the idea of the Sabres beating either would have been comical, but the program has come a long way and overcome lots of hurdles to get where they are. Now, Allendale-Fairfax and Southside Christian have reached the season's final game, and their match-up should be a good one. As in most big games, the ball will undoubtedly bounce the wrong way for one or both teams at some point. A turnover, a missed tackle or a special teams miscue will almost certainly come into play, but when it does, it isn't likely to shake up either team. They've gotten where they are by overcoming. Nobody is perfect and no team is either.
Success is often defined by how you handle failure. On the football field, coaches often talk about not letting one team beat you twice...that is, beat you on the field, then stay in your head and affect your performance the next week. Neither team competing for the Class A Division II state title sports an undefeated record, but both squads believe their early-season stumbles helped get them where they are today. Lamar, the upperstate champion, plays an ambitious out-of-region schedule every year. When they lost early to AAA Hartsville (who finished 12-1) and Darlington (who went 6-5) it wasn't a surprise. Both schools have more than four times the student enrollment of Lamar and the Silver Foxes aquitted themselves well on the field in both contests. What did come as a surprise was the team's Week 5 game against Andrew Jackson. Though the Volunteers are a AA team, they've struggled for a many years in terms of wins and losses and came into the contest just 1-4, their only victory a relatively close one over Great Falls. They'd played McBee in the second week of the season and were whipped 84-14. It looked like a last, easy tune-up for Lamar before the region slate began. The week of that game coincided with the arrival of intense storms and rain that would cause widespread flooding across the state. With the heaviest rain set to begin on Friday, the game was moved up to Thursday. "We didn't know until Thursday morning that we were playing that night," said Silver Foxes Coach Corey Fountain. "We aren't used to dealing with change. We like to keep a regular routine." What unfolded that night was a shocker. On a sloppy field with rain coming down, Lamar struggled to hold onto the ball and couldn't get the Volunteers offense off the field. Andrew Jackson won that night 16-14. So surprising was that score, some people (myself included) double-checked to make sure someone with a fat thumb hadn't hit the wrong button as they tweeted the score. Fountain said the game being moved up suddenly played some role in the outcome, but said Andrew Jackson had to deal with the early start too. "The bottom line is, we just weren't ready to play. Andrew Jackson outplayed us that night," Fountain said. "That was a bad game," said running back Tre Ceasar. Some teams would've been shaken by such a loss. Fingers would be pointed, dissention would set in and the the loss would linger. That didn't happen to Lamar, though. The team knew it was capable of better, knew it had a chance for a special season and set out to prove it. "That was really a wake-up call for us. We rallied around each other, we strapped it up and decided to get after it," Fountain said. Blowout region wins against Lewisville, C.A. Johnson and Great Falls followed. That brought a match-up with McBee, at the time the number one team in Class A. The Panthers had rolled Lamar the year before and came in averaging over 60 points a game. They didn't leave the field against Lamar with those gaudy numbers intact. The Silver Foxes ended McBee's winning streak and stay atop the Class A polls with 21-13 victory. It was the lowest points output for the Panthers in more than two years. Lamar earned a number one playoff seed and has trucked its three post-season opponents. Without the self-examination and rededicated focus of the loss to Andrew Jackson, that might not have happened. C.E. Murray, the lowerstate champion who will battle Lamar for the state title Saturday, doesn't have the long, illustrous football pedigree of the Silver Foxes. Since beginning play in 1972, the War Eagles have had only seven winning seasons and two playoff victories. Coach Brian Smith suffered a tough go in his first season (2013) with a 2-8 record. The losses were rarely close. Last year, the team won three games, made the playoffs and were much more competitive in their losses. Thanks to a very generous friend of the program, the team was able to hit the 7-on-7 circuit over the summer, including a mutli-day stay in North Carolina. For some players, it was the first time they'd left Williamsburg County. Smith knew there was talent on hand, had seen first-hand how hard his players had worked and thought the summer trips would bond the group. On top of that, the team, whose run-heavy offense isn't really a hit with pass-ever-down 7-on-7s, had some success against much larger schools. "We were playing Spartanburg, Valdosta...the biggest of the big. Some of those schools brought 100 players with them to the competitions. That's about how many boys we have in our entire school," Smith said. Everything came together when the season started. The team equalled its 2014 win total in three weeks, ripping off wins against Kingstree, Lincoln and Hemingway. That brought a match-up with perrenial power Cross. Smith said his team played its worst game of the season in losing 28-6. "Cross is a good team and we got a little bit of a big head. We thought we could roll over them," said sophomore quarterback Darius Rush. Rush said the loss woke the team. Nobody could be overlooked or taken lightly, no matter how well the War Eagles were playing. "We learned from that," Rush said. The hard lesson paid dividends quickly. The next week, C.E. Murray took on AAA Manning. It was supposed to be a War Eagles home game, but the school actually had to sell the contest to Manning to help athletic budget ends meet. C.E. Murray had never beaten their rival from down the street before, but on September 18, they did, emerging with an 18-12 win. Another first, a win over Carvers Bay, followed the next week and the team was off to the races. Not even flooding that put many players in an emergency shelter, had others trapped in their homes and kept the team off the field for almost a month could derail the War Eagles. They won out, won a region title, and blew through their first two playoff opponents. They did so by paying attention to details...they take care of the ball, they play solid defense and don't beat themselves with dumb penalties. They had a real fight on their hands in the lowerstate finals, but beat a good Lake View team with a field goal at the buzzer. Detrell Rush, a senior linebacker and tight end, said he knew after the Manning win that his team could not be stopped. That signature history-making win came just seven days after the team's only loss. It showed a team that was rising quickly the daily focus necessary to keep from falling back to Earth. Now, Lamar and C.E. Murray will meet in the state title game. Neither team had a perfect season in terms of their record, but for one, a perfect ending is still possible. |
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November 2021
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