Barnwell (1-0) at Blackville-Hilda
This will be the season-opener for B-H, while Barnwell (or the Fightin' Barts as I call them) opened the year with a 43-18 win over Williston-Elko last week. It's hard, this early in the year, to know if that means Williston-Elko is in for an off year or Barnwell is improved from 2015 when they lost to Williston. Call me an old sentimental type, or a goober, a ne'er-do-well, a lay-about, a slugabed...I'll answer to most anything, but I just like 1A better when Blackville-Hilda is competitive and has a say-so in how things turn out in the post-season. Unfortunately, they've really struggled for a while, posting just eight wins in the last three years, though they were competitive in a lot of losing efforts last season. This game should let us know if the Barts are the real deal and if the Hawks are ready to break out of the doldrums. Ridgeland/Hardeeville (1-0) at Estill (0-1) I've long applauded Ridgeland/Hardeeville for eschewing the hyphen and going with a forward slash. It says "we're different and our punctuation proves it." They beat Thomas Heyward Academy to open the season, while Estill fell to Allendale-Fairfax 24-2. Does Hardeeville have an actual Hardees. If they do, I'd like to file a complaint...less of the "let's see how much crap we can pack between two pieces of bread" philosphy and more of the Big Cookie. No Big Cookie, no peace! I'm not filling space, YOU'RE filling space. Edisto (0-1) at Hunter-Kinard-Tyler (0-1) Edisto struggled in the opener...if by "struggled" you mean "had to bite down on a towel, losing to O-W 54-0. HKT played way up in the opener, battling Fairfield Central but falling 42-14. Expect big things this year from HKT junior QB DeVante Scott, who threw for more than 1,200 yards last year and ran for almost 1,600, with 30 total touchdowns. North at Branchville (0-1) North is opening their season with this one, while Branchville might need a salve of some kind to recover from the 50-6 rootin' Baptist Hill gave them last week. Not a lot of analysis to offer here. North is trying to break in a new spread offense, good luck with it y'all. Ridge Spring-Monetta (0-1) at Saluda (0-1) Count me as surprised, not that these two teams lost last week, but how badly they lost. RSM lost to Batesburg-Leesville 36-7 and Saluda fell to Strom Thurmond 38-7. The Tigers got gashed for over 300 yards rushing in their loss, which was more than QB Tyrell Abney's 211 total yards could balance out. RSM fumbled five times and didn't get a first down until its sixth possession, so the Trojans may have just been outmanned. Their lone score, oddly was on a 79-yard pass pass in the 4th quarter by QB Jerry Tyler...odd, since they are normally averse to throwing the ball and junk. With a small school like RSM, sometimes there's a dip in athletes or a loss of a big senior class that takes a while to replace. It could be they were just overwhelmed by a bigger, more talented team last week, but if that's the case more of that is likely in store this week against the higher-in-classification Tigers. I've also noticed, in recent years, the Trojans seem to do their best work later in the season, so give them time. Pelion (0-1) at Wagener-Salley (1-0) Look out for the folks from Chitterling-ville. Wagener-Salley roughed up what has been a resurgent Whitmire team 36-nam last week. The Eagles showed a great deal of improvement last year and seem to have taken another step in the right direction in 2016. From what I've been able to gather, they physically overwhelmed the Woverines. They had terrific size up front last year, a QB that didn't make many mistakes, some athletic backs and just pounded the rock. Sounds like more of the same this year. That might be enough against a Pelion team that is low on numbers, got whipped in almost every game last year and lost the opener to Calhoun County 46-22 last week. Baptist Hill (1-0) at Garrett Academy Tech (0-1) Is there a more convoluted school name in the state than Garrett Academy Tech A&M Comperhensive High, North Charleston Campus? No. No there is not. They got one stuck in them and broke off last week against Porter Gaud, Baptist Hill had a huge win over Branchville and thus ends the things I can tell you about this match-up that are relevant or true. Charleston Charter Math and Science School (0-1) at Porter Gaud (1-0) I may have spoken too soon on the "why is your school named that?" topic. CCMASS (Gah, the abbreviation is even overly long) is a new program and boy did they take one last week, losing to First Baptist School 47-0. Since Porter Gaud routed Garrett last week, this match-up does not portend well for the smart kids, I'm thinking. C.E. Murray vs. Bamberg-Ehrhardt Put this just a whisker behind Lamar-Pageland for my favorite match-up of the week. The two will actually be battling Saturday at S.C. State, which will be a great experience for both teams. C.E. Murray, your defending lowerstate champion, opened the year with a nice "up" win, 33-20 over Kingstree. Darius Rush, who had played quarterback for the team last year but is now primarily at RB and WR, ran for 111 yards and 4 flipping touchdowns on 11 carries last week. Carlton Robinson had 110 yards on eight carries (and a score), so the War Eagles were ripping off yards in pretty big chunks last week on the ground. Malik Starling had 17 tackles in the win and Daviyan Oglesby picked off two passes. I'm partial to C.E. Murray because the team not only came out of nowhere to make a run to state last year (it was their first winning season in a decade) but the Greeleyville area, where the school is located, was one of the hardest hit areas in the state by flooding last year. During the season, many players were living in shelters or were trapped in their homes...so to overcome that and have the best season in school history says quite a bit about those kids and coaches, to me. The Raiders, now in the AA ranks beat Woodland 21-12 last week, a nice win over a larger opponent. Since there's no college football to speak of Saturday and Friday's slate will already be in the books, hard to see how you shouldn't get to this one if you can. Everybody else, congratulations, you're getting jammed into a multi-song medley, kinda like my dad was subjected to when he went and saw Ronnie Milsap at Carowinds a long time ago...Stranger in my house, I wouldn't have missed it for the world, Daydreams about night things and two other hits rammed into a five-song medley that concluded the 25 entire minute-long concert. Hopefully you'll be more pleased that Pop was that afternoon... Other match-ups include Stall at St. John's (0-1), Military Magnet (0-1) at North Charleston, Creek Bridge (0-1) at Latta (0-1), Hanah-Pamplico (0-1) at Marion (0-1), Hemingway at Kingstree (0-1) and Johnsonville (1-0) at Lake View (1-0)
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TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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