Lewisville- 64
Wagener-Salley- The great Frank Drebin will spell it out for you McBee- 49 Estill- 20 Dixie- 24 Ridge Spring-Monetta- 6 Hunter-Kinard-Tyler- 44 Whitmire- 42 Hemingway- 20 Scott’s Branch- Tell ‘em bout it Graham Cross- 66 East Clarendon- Let’s make it educational…for the children Green Sea-Floyds- 52 Military Magnet- 23 Baptist Hill- 28 Bethune-Bowman- 24 Breakdown- It wasn’t a banner week if you wanted to see compelling, dramatic football games, but if you like to see school children cry and second-half clocks run, Friday was basically an early Christmas for you. I went 7-1 on my playoff picks…you know how teachers will forever remember that one child they didn’t reach in a room full students that they did, or how a doctor can successfully treat seven patients and have them slip from his mind after bringing their bodies back to full, pulsating vitality, but he can never forget that one who ends up with his head sewn to his butt? Um, I’ll focus on the one I missed is what I’m saying here. I thought Dixie was a really nice story this year, having their first winning record in 16 years, but I also felt like their win total chunked up on a delicious selection of scheduling creampuffs. Three of their six regular season wins were against private schools, military academies, loose packs of kids that went unclaimed at daycare centers, whatever. I still thought they showed real progress, since they’d not managed six wins in a year against any schedule since 2000. Ridge Spring-Monetta plays a physical style on both sides of the ball and has had a tendency to get hot at the end of seasons and make a deep playoff push for several straight years. Well, I was totally wrong. Dixie, under new coach Vic Lollis, is legitimately a good team, and beating RS-M 24-6 proves that. Yes, the Trojans turned the ball over five times, but Dixie’s Jarod Hagood ran for 159 yards and two touchdowns on what’s been a pretty good RS-M defense. He also added a crucial interception on defense. Dixie has been good in a number of sports in recent years, so you know they have athletes, but that never seemed to carry over to football. Well, now it has. The folks in Due West have been waiting for a winner for a while, so good for them. They’ll be playing the top-ranked, unbeaten Lamar Silver Foxes next week so, hey, they’ll have another shot to prove me wrong and make a terrible analogy about a doctor doing something weird with a patient’s head. The other two competitive games were Hunter-Kinard-Tyler’s 44-42 overtime win over Whitmire and Baptist Hill’s 28-24 victory over Bethune-Bowman. Whitmire didn’t just dig into their bag of tricks early in their game, they emptied the contents of the bag out on a street corner and then threw them at vagrants and kids playing that Pokemon game. They went for and recovered two onside kicks in the first quarter, got a couple of Devin Vo touchdown runs and led 22-0. From the account I read, Coach Charlie Jenkins (no relation, but he’s a good fellow like most Jenkins’) said his team just got outmanned athletically. They lost 18 starters from last year, which is kind of a lot when you only have 160 kids in your whole school. But, Jenkins has built a nice program there, so a lot of youngsters had to step in. There was a learning a curve and they hit some real rough spots, but they won four games, made the playoffs and should be better for it next year. I didn’t see a lot of info on HKT’s end of things, but I think it’s safe to assume quarterback Davonte Scott put up stupid video game numbers. Not like video games now, that are relatively realistic, I mean like Madden 95 numbers, where you could just get to third and one, have the defense stack eight in the box, audible to all streak routes and score a touchdown every time. Or, you could run sort of a split 4-3, bring the middle backer on the blitz and end the year with 70 sacks. Or maybe the old NBA game where the ball would actually catch on friggin’ fire when you made a few shots in a row. If you have video of a flaming ball coming out of Scott’s hand, how bout shoot it to me. As for Baptist Hill-Bethune Bowman, I’m glad the Mr. T Haircuts had some success this year, since they’d not had a winning record, I don’t think, since Bethune and Bowman consolidated. Unfortunately, they really limped down the stretch, losing four of their last five. It’s been a while since Baptist Hill had a big year too, though, and we’ll know REAL QUICK how good they are when they play unbeaten, physically menacing Lake View next week. Region II had a good night, as I figured they would with Lewisville and McBee both winning convincingly. I picked Lewisville to win and felt comfortable that they’d take it by a few touchdowns over Wagener-Salley, but I wasn’t expecting the red hot tooling they threw on the Stump Whooped All-Stars. Now, Wagener-Salley’s leading rusher was out, which hurt, but when you lose 64-0, it ain’t just because a running back is hurt. Lewisville hammered them from the get-go, with Trey Keels throwing for more than 350 yards and four touchdowns IN THE FIRST HALF! Mike Hill did his normal, crazy North-South All-Star Burning Footballs thing, scoring three more touchdowns (two receiving, one rushing) Quentin Sanders had more than 100 rushing and 100 receiving and five touchdowns and the defense held the Poop-filled innards people to 118 total yards. So, I guess I’ve now shot my limit on chitlin jokes this year. I’ll miss them and I’m sure you will too. On a good note, the Lions are as talented as anybody and could get a rematch with McBee with if they can get by McCormick this week. Speaking of McBee, they were never in danger of losing to Estill at all, but they were only up 14-0 at the half on a team that somehow got an at-large bid despite being 1-9. I was told fullback/linebacker Alex Miller was out with an injury, which may have had an effect. Hopefully he’ll be back since he’s an important part of what they do on both sides. Luckily, Dashonnell Wright and Richardo Wright combined for five touchdown. I hope some paper in the McBee area has had a cornball “Wright Brothers” headline. I don’t know if they’re actually brothers, but they both live in McBee, have the same name and are good at football, so it stands to reason. Anyway, McBee matches up with a big, physical Blackville-Hilda team this week. Cross narrowly edged out Lewisville for the largest tail-dragging of the week with a 66-0 pummeling of East Clarendon. Nathan Walker played rough with the children from Turbeville, running for 196 yards and three touchdowns. They get to play another magical, feel-good team this week Hannah-Pamplico. Big congrats go to Green Sea-Floyds, which got its first playoff win in 13 years Friday with a win over Military Magnet, which hilariously got to host a playoff game at 1-9 because of dumb, pre-set brackets. Mohammad Graham had 128 yards, Akil Gause 101 and GS-F had 423 as a team. Given that that was one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Matthew and its aftermath, it’s cool that the community has something positive to rally around like a winning football team. This week they get a school that did the same thing for its community last year, C.E. Murray. Could not find a thing on Hemingway-Scott’s Branch. Nothing. That might be one of those pockets of South Carolina that is tucked away from any form of media, where the only means of disseminating news is to whisper it to Gert after church on Sunday, safe in the knowledge that she’ll have told everybody about it by Bible study on Wednesday…not accurately, she’ll have mixed in questions about somebody’s parentage and will have somebody that’s actually as healthy as horse on their death bed (Lord, ol’ Willis has got one foot in the grave and one on a nanner peel). That’s what it’s like where I live anyway. One non Class A note to pass along…Mullins had its season ended by Whale Branch in the first round of the playoffs on Friday. That means my favorite player, Mullin running back Willie Nelson, had his season ended. Hate that, it was fun year but now the party’s over… Suggested reading I blame Dixie for that doctor butt-to-head sewing analogy, I really do Whitmire may have lost to HKT in the playoffs, but they have a Piggly Wiggly and an honor-system at their public golf course, so I’m still a fan GS-F won the war in the trenches against Military Magnet…which is funny because I mixed in some military jargon there Cross proved successful in its most recent athletic endeavor
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TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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