Lewisville- 42
McCormick- 14 McBee- 41 Blackville-Hilda- 8 Lamar- 54 Dixie- White Candy Bar Williston-Elko- 44 Hunter-Kinard-Tyler- 8 Hemingway- 30 St. John’s- 25 Hannah-Pamplico- 17 Cross- 12 C.E. Murray- 32 Green Sea-Floyds- 6 Lake View- 56 Baptist Hill- 26 Breakdown- For the second straight week, I went 7-1 on my playoff predictions, which is a dang good average, unless you’re surgeon or something, in which case you suck at your job. “There’s nothing much to worry about Jimmy, I’ve done this surgery 80 times in the last month and 70 of the patients came through it just fine. I get the shakes or start playing with my phone sometimes, but it probably won’t happen with you. Just put on the mask, breathe deep and you’ll probably wake up in a little bit.” Let’s focus first on the one game I did miss. I said last week that Hannah-Pamplico doesn’t just pull rabbits out of its hat, it pulls out really big rabbits wearing hats they pull rabbits out of. They can ride unicycles and speak four languages and play the bassoon. Seriously, they opened the season by getting drilled by Lamar, then lost in a close game to Marion…but since then, they beat Johnsonville by one, Timmonsville by six, beat a few not-very-good teams by big margins, then Waccamaw by four, Green Sea-Floyds by three, Hemingway by three and now Cross by five. They’ve won a game on a last-second touchdown pass, downed Hemingway by causing and returning a fumble for a touchdown with just over a minute left when Hemingway was leading and just trying to run out the clock and they picked off a pass with under a minute last week to advance in the playoffs. I’ve had coaches tell me before that momentum and confidence are two of the most important factors for a football team. If a team believes they can win, it really does make a difference. Well, H-P has every reason to think, even if things look bleak late, that someone will make a play and they’ll come out on top…since they’ve won every flipping close game they’ve played. I said last week if it was close late they’d win, but it wouldn’t be close late because Cross had beaten its last three opponents by a combined score of 182-6 and would beat H-P down physically over the course of the game. “Nurse, where’s my scalpel and my bottle of Johnny Walker. Daddy needs to calm his nerves before he gets to cuttin’.” Eric Mays and Nick Owens each had a touchdown in the win. This is obviously a fun team to watch and root for. They’ll have a rematch with Hemingway with this week. I was able to take in the Lewisville-McCormick game Friday night. First of all, Mataeo Durant is every bit as good as I’d heard he was on both sides of the ball. He’s electric with the ball in his hands. However, Lewisville, save one 67-yard touchdown run, contained him fairly well. On top of that, they won the game up front on both sides of the ball. The Chiefs ball-carriers got hemmed in behind the line frequently and their quarterback, on the rare occasions they tried to throw, just didn’t have a pocket to stand in. Josh Belk, Jene Thompson et al consistently blew things up in the backfield. On the other side, Lewisville was without North-South All-Star Mike Hill, but Quentin Sanders consistently moved the chains on the ground and quarterback Trey Keels had a big night, despite being without his top weapon. A.J. Robinson and Johnny Courtney both stepped up at receiver and made tons of big plays. McCormick having been sitting idle for a month certainly didn’t help them, but I honestly don’t think they could match Lewisville in terms of talent up and down the roster. So, we get another rematch this Friday as Lewisville goes to McBee. Speaking of the Panthers, they doled out a vigorous rootin’ to Blackville-Hilda on Friday 41-8. B-H had a nice turnaround year, winning seven games after scuffling for a couple of seasons, but they lost two-of-three to finish the year and, in retrospect, their region may not have been as tough as it appeared at one point this season. Most of their success came when they could use their size to physically overwhelm opponents. Since McBee ran for 460 yards, it’s safe to say that didn’t happen. Richardo Wright ran for 304 yards and four touchdowns ON 20 CARRIES HOLY CRAP OH DEAR. Dashonell Wright ran for 111 yards, meaning people named “Wright” outrushed Blackville-Hilda by 300-ish yards. I think it would behoove McBee to encourage the Wright family to continue procreating at a high rate. Maybe just send them some Barry White albums and good bottles of wine to keep that athletic pipeline flowing. Just a thought. McBee rolled Lewisville pretty well earlier in the season, but I have a feeling Friday’s game will be considerably closer. We’ll see. I’m as big a fan and supporter of the “up from the ashes” turnaround stories as anybody, so it was hard not to admire and pull for Dixie. The Hornets got to 6-4 (their first winning record since 2000) in the regular season but I wondered if it was fool’s gold since they played a fairly weak schedule. Once they beat a good, physical Ridge Spring-Monetta team in the first round of the playoffs, it was obvious they had legitimately taken a big step forward under first-year Coach Vic Lollis and even better things may be in store down the road. However, they had as much chance of beating Lamar last Friday as I do of being named Miss America (bearing in mind that I’m too old to enter, am a man and am not even especially good-looking). Lamar has the best resume of any team in the field with wins over AA, AAA and AAAA teams, they’ve won 19 straight games, they have a fast defense that physically intimidates most everyone it plays and an offense that’s a weird cross-breeding of heavy stones and cheetahs wearing jetpacks…in that they can just beat you down with clock-eating drives or break a big play at any minute. I was told that game ended at 9:05 with a clock running the whole second half. The Silver Foxes didn’t give up a first down until a minute was left in the second quarter, their defense scored twice, Jeblonski Green trampled opposing school children…just your typical Lamar kinda stuff. They get Williston-Elko this week. W-E actually trailed Hunter-Kinard-Tyler 8-6 at halftime Friday, but outscored the Trojans 38-0 in the second half. Tyran Parker didn’t forget how to be a running back during the bye week, piling up 187 yards. Now they get to go to Lamar Friday night…”get to.” Hahaha listen to me. Might not be a fun trip, but I’ll save my official prediction for later in the week. I wasn’t able to find much info on Lake View’s win over Baptist Hill, but it seems to have played out about like I figured. Baptist Hill had a good year, but piled up big numbers and wins against a fairly weak schedule and got torched by the three good teams they played. Lake View, who was without Shrine Bowl QB/DB Duane Nichols (who should be back this week, I hear), got 180 yards and two touchdowns on the ground from Tyshawn McDaniel and another 130 yards rushing and a score from Randall Washington. My clandestine low country expert has pegged them as the team to beat this year with their size, their athletic backfield, their 20 seniors and with them now 11-0 he may just be right, but getting to the lowerstate finals won’t be easy… Because they’ll be playing defending lowerstate champ C.E. Murray Friday. I thought the War Eagles might get a decent battle from Green Sea Floyds Friday, but it wasn’t competitive. C.E. Murray’s defense held Green Sea very powerful, very productive rushing attack to under 140 yards, which not many teams have been able to do (including Lake View). C.J. Robinson had 96 yards rushing for the War Eagles, Darius Rush had 87 yards and a pair of touchdowns, Sean Swaringer ran for 78 yards and two scores and Elijah Bey hit 6-of-10 passes for 87 yards and a touchdown. It’s worth noting not one of those backs had as many as 10 carries, so everybody stays fresh and you have to contend with a lot of weapons when you face them. Anthony Wilson and Shyhiem White keyed the defense with nine tackles each. It feels like C.E. Murray-Lake View is basically for the lowerstate title and the game will be an absolute war right on par with McBee-Lewisville. Finally, we had Hemingway, nipping St. John’s on the road. St. John’s, like McCormick, had not played a football game in a month and though their coaches (to their credit) did not blame the loss on that layoff in any way, it had to have been a factor. Hemingway, who has had a great year despite some odd ups and downs (beat C.E. Murray one week, nearly lost to East Clarendon the next) got a big game from quarterback Troy Singletary, who accounted for three touchdowns. Their defense also came up with interceptions on three straight drives in the second half. They’ll now turn around and face the H-P team whose late game heroics against them became a viral video sensation a few weeks ago. Suggested reading (and viewing) Some vidya for you here of Lewisville’s dominant effort against McCormick. 9:05. The game was over at 9:05. Williston-Elko advanced in the playoffs and claimed the prestigious Old Oaken Hyphen Trophy with a win over Hunter-Kinard-Tyler. Is Hemingway named for that guy? The dead one that wrote stuff? I’ll check on that, but they won a game Friday, so there’s that. Have a thought, a suggestion, an insult for the doofus who writes this every week? Leave it in the comment section.
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TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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