Spartanburg Christian Academy at Calhoun Falls Charter (0-1)
Can’t really offer a ton of insight into this one, Hoss. Spartanburg Christian has a roster of 15 players, Calhoun Falls Charter has 13. Bout all I got for you on this’n. Dixie (1-0) at Crescent (1-0) Both teams are unbeaten, untied and nearly unscored upon this season. I mean, they’ve both only played one game against outmanned opponents, but you have to sell the sizzle a little. Dixie blew out Ware Shoals 48-0 last week. The Hornets (the ones from Dixie, not the ones from Ware Shoals…could someone please change their names to The Skeeters or Dirt Dobbers to make this less confusing) forced five turnovers and dominated up front. Deivon Donald scored two touchdowns on offense and ran a kick back for another score. Chandler Smalley ran for a score and caught a touchdown pass. Dixie has been smart about the way they’ve handled things, seriously dialing back their schedule last season after many years of Derp. It worked to the tune of six wins, which has gotten them going in the right direction. Last week’s victory might be an indication that Dixie is legitimately good. Whether Ware Shoals is down or not, beating somebody 48-0 is taking care of business. Crescent beat all 13 of Calhoun Falls’ school children 34-6, doing so behind a power running game led by Kenny White. It’s not a stretch at all, if you look at Dixie’s upcoming pre-region schedule, to think that they can be 7-0 going into their match-up with McCormick if they win this one. McCormick (0-1) at Lincoln County McCormick dropped a 27-16 decision last Friday to Fox Creek. They actually led 8-7 at halftime but gave up 13 unanswered points late in the game. That could be a product of playing a bigger school with a deeper bench and wearing out late. They also gave up a special teams touchdown in that one. Believe me when I tell you the Chiefs have one of the most impressive athletes in the state in running back Mataeo Durant. I saw him in the playoffs against Lewisville last year. He has an unreal first step explosion, killer moves in the open field and finishes every single run. He had about 150 yards that night against a very good Lewisville defense but you kind of held your breath every time he touched the ball, knowing he could break one on any play. I don’t know much about Lincoln County other than it’s in Georgia and the Duke boys lived there. Or was that Hazzard County? It might have been Hazzard. I think it was Hazzard. Dangit, I was all set to make a killer joke about Crazy Cooter too. Oh well. Lincoln has beaten McCormick the last three years by a combined score of 131-14, so, even with Durant, this may not go real well. Ware Shoals (0-1) at Southside Christian (1-0) Ware Shoals turned the ball over five times as they were roundly rogered by Dixie 48-0 last week. It doesn’t seem like this long, but Ware Shoals hasn’t had a winning record since 2009…now they did still make a deep playoff run a few years back, but still, it’s unusual to see this program be down for this long when they were competing for state titles less than 10 years ago. A trip to play one of the Greenville County private school all-star squads probably ain’t the salve for their Dixie-inflicted burns. Southside Christian just doled out a 51-13 whoopin’ to St. Joe’s last week Whitmire (0-1) at Great Falls The Wolverines had a rough opener last Friday, losing to what I think can be a very good Wagener-Salley team 62-7. I’m a fan of what Charlie Jenkins has done at Whitmire, and not just because he has a last name that exudes winning and greatness and everything right about humanity (we aren’t related, btw). At a school with under 200 students, he gets huge numbers out, coaches and develops players well and puts a winning product on the field. Now, when you graduate 13 starters, it sometimes takes a while to reload, but I think by the end of the year Whitmire will be just fine. Great Falls didn’t play last week…well, they didn’t play a game that counted on the record. They beat York’s JV team 26-7 (seniors weren’t allowed to play in that one). New Coach Scotty Steen has got the numbers up this year and was, in my opinion, the perfect pick for the job. He’s a Great Falls lifer, loves the school and the kids love him. Now, they are young but they have some real talent. They also go 6’4, 6’3 and 6’3 at receiver. And those aren’t tall, slow, uncoordinated people with bad knees like me…Kelton Talford, Tommy Belk and Zac Roberts are athletic and tough. Talford, frankly, may actually be a mushroom or Chia Pet. I put 6’4 because that’s what they list him at, but he legitimately looks taller every time I see him. Great Falls has a good shot to break its 15-game losing streak tonight. I’ll be taking this one in in person. Pageland Central at Lamar (1-0) The top-ranked Silver Foxes beat a good Hannah-Pamplico team 39-21 last week. However, they gave up a couple of atypical long plays and it was only a 26-21 game at one point. My covert, Lamar double agent tells me that while Lamar is still very good, they are young at some spots and may not have a cake walk most every week like last year. At least not at this point. Still, Jacquez Lucas ran for 144 yards on 12 carries and had 3 touchdowns and they notched a quality win. They face a Pageland team with a new coach in former Eagles player Trent Usher. I’ve heard nothing but good things about them. Lamar won this one 31 to NOT NAM last year, but this figures to be a good one. Lewisville (1-0) at Blacksburg The Lions rolled AJ last week 30-6. Coach Mitchell told me it seemed like a closer game than that, though. AJ did dominate time of possession and Mitchell wants to see better work up front and to see his team sustain some drives. Still, Quentin Sanders had 260 total yards and four touchdowns and the defense gave up around 60 on the ground and 60 through the air against a AA team that had a winning record last year, so not a bad night’s work. Blacksburg is a AA program on the rise, they have an abundance of large people up front, a studly D end and a quarterback committed to a Big 10 school. The concern for Lewisville is having two offensive linemen and two defensive linemen who could miss the game due to injury. That would make it tough against a team as big as Blacksburg. The Lions hung on for a two-point win in this game last year and I expect this will be tight too. McBee (0-1) at Chesterfield McBee is coming off a 30-12 loss to Lakewood. Normally a Class A team losing to a AAAA team wouldn’t raise an eyebrow, but McBee had knocked off Lakewood convincingly each of the past two years. When you lose as talented a class as McBee did, there will be an adjustment period. It doesn’t mean the good times really are over for good. Shane Hammonds and Tyrece Wright (so I was wrong, all the Wrights didn’t graduate. I know the McBee athletic department appreciates their procreativity) each had a touchdown last week and when they play like-sized competition, they will probably be the tough, competitive McBee we’ve come to know over the past three years. Of course, they don’t play like-sized competition for a while and I’ve heard nothing but “holy crap they’re loaded” about Chesterfield this year so, we’ll see. Timmonsville (0-1) at East Clarendon (0-1) Both teams lost by lopsided margins last week. Timmonsville fell to Wilson 40-6 while East Clarendon dropped a 33-7 game to Johnsonville. Man imagine being good at football AND having awesome sausage. I assume they make Johnsonville sausages in Johnsonville. Anyway, East Clarendon allowed to 100-plus yard rushers, while Timmonsville was just outmanned by a much larger opponent. What does that mean for this game? No clue. None. Can’t help ya. Blackville-Hilda at Barnwell (1-0) This is the season-opener for the Fighting Hawks, who after several down years notched a seven-win campaign in 2016. They did it by playing blunt-force-trauma football. They ran kind of a single wing variation, with a big offensive line and a quarterback that was equally large who ran lots of sweeps and traps. If they could physically overpower you, they beat you. It was a throwback to old-timey football when guys named W.E. and L.R. smoked in the huddle and ran a wedge offense and didn’t wear pads and derided teammates not willing to play through lung punctures as sissies. Anyway, we’ll see what they’ve got this year, but they get a mighty stiff task in the opener against a ranked AA Barnwell team that beat them 24-0 last year. Denmark-Olar (0-1) at Bethune-Bowman (1-0) These teams will battle for the Old Oaken Hyphen Trophy Friday night. Or they should, anyway. Denmark was on the receiving end of a good rootin’ last week, falling Scott’s Branch 50-6. Bethune-Bowman won a wild one over Military Magnet 48-27. This is a program that took a bit of a step forward last season and had a winning record. They ran for huge yardage last week. Quarterback Braxton Wedgeworth didn’t throw for a lot of yards, but he did toss two touchdowns and run for 178 yards and three more touchdowns. Also they have a running back named Jesus. Jesus Benjamin who had 110 yards and a score. Joseph Ayers went for 94 on the ground. This feels like a an opportunity for another big offensive night for the Mr. T Haircuts. Part II of my Class A preview will be up sometime tomorrow.
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TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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