..Augusta Christian- 35
Calhoun Falls Charter- 10 Dixie- 34 Camden Military- 6 Southside Christian- 65 McCormick- 28 St. Joe’s- 33 Ware Shoals- 8 Ridge Spring-Monetta- 39 Whitmire- Hard to beat old Tom, now Blackville-Hilda- 46 Great Falls- 12 Lamar- 57 Darlington- 6 Buford- 38 Lewisville- 20 Lee Central- 41 Timmonsville- 14 Branchville- 6 Denmark-Olar- 3? No, little lower. Didn't have a safety, either. That should help... Bethune-Bowman- 52 North- Baptist Hill- 56 Burke- 6 C.E. Murray- 34 The Charleston Charter School for wheel alignment and brake repair failed to score in this football contest. Academic Magnet- 28 Military Magnet- 12 St. John’s- 14 Charleston County All-Stars- 13 Timberland- 20 Cross- 6 Marion- 24 Creek Bridge- Nah man Chesterfield- 43 East Clarendon- Gosh golly the kids played hard and the band sounded great Aynor- 16 Green Sea-Floyds- 6 Hemingway- 46 Johnsonville- Is named like sausage is named and had not nam points Lake View- 50 South Robeson- 6 Breakdown- As is always the case this time of year, many Class A schools played up last week. It was a bit of rough week on that front (especially coming off the success of the previous week) with Class A schools posting a 3-9 record in such games. Your winners were St. John’s, Hemingway and Lamar. Let’s take that Lamar game first. In my opinion, the Silver Foxes demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt that they are the top team in the classification until someone proves otherwise. They didn’t just beat AAAA Darlington, they probably left marks and rug burn in a 57-6 dragging. Lamar was dominant in every phase of the game against a school four times its size. The mauling was the result of a spectacular air show, either, they lined up and stuck right up the old A gap, mainly with that full-house backfield look they’ve favored in recent years. Do you think they give plays names like “Mary Kate” or “Uncle Jesse?” Probably not. Dated reference and I’ll move on now. Tyrik Herion had 210 yards rushing and a pair of touchdowns. Jacquez Lucas went for 168 and three scores on the ground and caught a 32-yard scoring toss. Watching some highlights, he legitimately looked like a squirrel being chase by obese three-legged dogs. Just sidestepping tacklers, bouncing outside, running away from them, stopping to eat a pecan just to mess with old fat Rover and let him think he has a chance before darting out of reach. The amazingly-named Jeblonski Green hasn’t played a whole lot of running back so far this year (my clandestine Lamar informant said he’s had a bit of a hamstring issue and has only been playing defense) but he got a few carries. When he did, he would just sort of disappear underneath a pile of purple-clad tacklers but the pile just kept on moving. Defensively he scored a touchdown, recovered a fumble, picked off a pass and generally pummeled the school children charged with blocking him. Cam Galloway added two picks. Lamar likely won’t be challenged the next few weeks against Eau Claire and East Clarendon, which will get them to 5-0. After a hard-fought win in the opener against Hannah-Pamplico, Lamar seems to have really hit its stride and improved the past two week, which is a scary proposition for everybody…Speaking of scary, St. John’s continued it’s season-opening, Doling out some Rootins ’17 Tour with a tight 14-13 win over Bishop England. So, in the opening three weeks, the Islanders have now beaten a AAA, a AAAA and AAAAA team, which has rightfully rocketed them up the Class A polls (more on that shortly). As they beat the Bishops, quarterback Kameron Smiley ran for 117 yards and passed for 124. I watched a little tape on that one, St. John’s spreads it out some and throws a lot of short stuff, but they also roll Smiley out and take some shots downfield. Run some option too. Tyrus Richardson added 116 yards (on six dadgum carries) in the win, but the real story is the team’s defense. They held Bishop England to 13 points, the same team that dropped 64 on Christ Church and 27 on West Ashley. That came after they gave up only 28 in the opener (to the aforementioned AAAAA James Island), and six to Stall. Hemingway is seen as the team to beat in the low country but if the Islanders keep going on their current track, they’ll have something to say about that…Speaking of Hemingway they beat Johnsonville 46-0 with Troy Singletary scoring four touchdowns. It was an “up” win but not a surprise by any stretch. I’m really only mentioning it here because it affords me the opportunity to make a sausage joke at Johnsonville’s expense. Losing 46-nam isn’t cause for a celebration, or a party. nd what kind of party would they have in a place that shares a name with a purveyor of sausage. I’ll move on now…If you ever played the old versions of Madden, you’d discover that there were quirks and bugs you could exploit. If you got to third-and-short, the computer would always load eight in the box and play man, so you’d just line up in the I, audible to all streak routes and throw a touchdown every time. You’d end games with 400 yards passing on 12 completions. Now the fun days of humiliating your computer opponent are over because it the game has a devil in it that reads your mind and cruelly counters your every move and toys with your game-playing emotions. All you can do is curse and fling the controller across the room because, come on, I’m playing with the Patriots and going against the Browns. Even in computer devil land that outcome should not be in doubt, stupid cheating computer. Anyway, the stats Corey Fields of Baptist Hill put up Friday night very much like those old Madden numbers. He was 11 of 15 for 330 yards and six touchdowns. Didn’t have big rushing numbers (two for 22 yards) but Baptist Hill also only ran 26 offensive plays. They were playing Burke, I know, but still, really stop for a second and think about what the Bobcats did offensively. Fields averaged 30 yards per completion and had six scores on 11 complete passes. He has 802 yards of total offense and 11 touchdowns in two games. As a team, they scored 8 touchdowns in 26 snaps against Burke. HOLY. BLEEPIN’. WOW. That level of execution is amazing, regardless of the opponent, but I still want to see them beat a good team. After what should be a win over Academic Magnet this Friday, they’ll get that opportunity at Cross next week…I know some people were surprised to see Lewisville fall last week against Buford. The score surprised me a little but not the end result, necessarily. Lewisville is blessed with A LOT of talent, but doesn’t possess great depth. They’ve got people hurt up front on both sides of the ball and that makes a huge difference. I also think Buford is an under-the-radar good team. Ryan Moore is a heck of quarterback and they’ve got some very nice skill people. They also picked off a pass and ran it back 109 yards for a touchdown on the last play of the first half and when that kind of stuff starts happening, it’s probably just your night…Bethune-Bowman laid a thumping on North, which taken as a standalone thing isn’t that big a deal. North has the state’s longest losing streak, but the Mr. T Haircuts did what you are supposed to do when playing a lesser team, which is to soundly thrash them. Braxton Wedgeworth (whose named sounds like the snotty, preppy antagonist of a John Hughes movie) didn’t put up huge rushing yards this week, but he did have an efficient 141 yards and three touchdowns through the air. Makiah Simmons had 137 yards and two touchdowns on just 10 carries. I can’t find his weight, but he’s listed at 5’8. In terms of his running style he looks like what you’d get if a cannonball, a dump truck and a cheetah could somehow have a baby. Seriously, it’s comical seeing how many would-be tacklers end up on their backs, but he appears to have some breakaway ability too. Defense has obviously played well, with back-to-back shutouts, but you have to take into account that the team’s 3-0 record has come against teams with a combined record of 0-8. Like with Baptist Hill, I need to see it against a quality team. As luck would have it, they’ll play one this week in Wagener-Salley, who was off last week but is 2-0. POLL TIME! As I do each week, I will now present to you the Class A Prep Media Poll, followed the top 10 that I personally submitted for said poll. 1. Lamar 2. Hemingway 3. St. John's 4. Lewisville 5, Lake View 6. Williston-Elko 7. C.E. Murray 8. Cross 9. Wagener-Salley 10. Hannah-Pamplico Receiving votes: Bethune-Bowman, Baptist Hill, Branchville, Dixie. 1. Lamar- Big fat duh on this one. The team to beat right now. 2. St. John’s- Nobody has as impressive a resume as the Islanders to this point. 3. Hemingway- If they beat Andrews this week, the hype will have been totally justified. 4. Lewisville- Not going to drop the Lions too far for a loss to a good AA team, especially when injuries played a part. 5. Lake View- Will be hard to know what the Wild Gators have really got until October games against Hemingway and H-P. 6. C.E. Murray- Run the ball, play defense, beat people, repeat. 7. Cross- Not dropping the Trojans too far off a close loss to a good AAA team. 8. Williston-Elko- Look at their schedule and find a definite loss…you can’t. 9. Hannah-Pamplico- The more Lamar lays down whoopins to bigger schools, the better that opening, competitive loss to the Silver Foxes looks. 10. Wagener-Salley- The Chitlin’ Slingers are off to a good start and can prove a lot this week against the Mr. T Haircuts. Realignment rantings- As you probably already know, Dixie did win its appeal to the appellate panel to stay in Class A, citing travel hardship and the fact that they lost enrollment from the last 135-day numbers and have been in the same region and class for nearly 40 years. Allendale-Fairfax and Hannah-Pamplico, for whatever reason, chose not to appeal, but probably should have. H-P has exactly the same enrollment number as Dixie (354) and A-F’s is actually lower (340). Hard to see how they’d approve one and not the other. Lewisville’s appeal was unanimously rejected. As I’ve written about before, Lewisville argued based on a Title IX issues and on competitive balance. I thought were fairly compelling, particularly the competitive balance issue. By moving multiple teams out of Class A and not moving anyone down to replace them, at least half of sanctioned sports will not have enough competing teams to field their own playoff bracket. So, in basically everything besides football, boys and girls basketball, softball and baseball, Class A teams will be competing in the AA playoffs. So Calhoun Falls Charter and its 94 students, or Whitmire, North and HKT (all under 200 students) will be competing against schools with nearly 700 students AND a buttload of private schools. He also asked why no accomodations were made on the high end in AAAAA for schools with outlier enrollment, but it apparently was for outlier schools on the low end in Class A. Predictably, no one chose to address that point. The minute Lewisville AD Rusty Pemberton ended his presentation, I knew what direction things were going to go. The appellate panel (which is made up of state legislators) was, to be blunt, dismissive and unnecessarily antagonistic. They asked only how the move would affect Lewisville’s female athletes, not those statewide (which was the basis of Lewisville’s argument). In response to Pemberton talking about how challenging it can be to schedule for some sports in Class A (because there aren’t many Class A schools near Lewisville and there are some sports, like girls soccer, many Class A schools don’t field) one panel member said “well, if Class A is so awful, seems like you’d want to move to AA.” Right, that’s exactly what Rusty said. Noting scheduling difficulties is clearly identical to calling the whole classification a burning poop bag. The only comment offered on his competitive balance issue was the same panel member saying when he was at Andrew Jackson, why Lewisville and Great Falls just whooped up on them all the time. So the whole argument is invalid based on his acectdotal evidence. Now, I like AJ, always have, but a lot of schools in many classifications across a wide array of sports have beaten them over the years. That doesn’t indicate in any way that Denmark-Olar is kick Abbeville or Christ Church in the face in the playoffs. At one point, Rusty made reference to the informational packet he had provided and asked if the panel had read it, then quickly followed with “I’m sure you have.” I don’t have to be polite, they probably didn’t. The nature of their questions and comments demonstrated that and not one of them made reference to anything in the packet during the short, anecdotal snarkfest that passed as a Q&A. If they didn’t feel Lewisville met the bar for demonstrating personal hardship and ill effects of a move to AA, that’s fine. I knew with a 135-day enrollment number of 380 (though the actual enrollment now is 367) they had a bit of a tough sell, but those proceedings were a huge waste of everyone’s time. Lewisville, by the way, had to pay $200 for that hearing and then had to pay travel costs for all the appellate members, which I’m not at all a fan of. If a school feels slighted or wronged by the SCHSL (which they pay membership dues to) in the realignment process, why in the world should they then have to pay for an appeal? Why do legislators who all but insisted they get a seat at the table a few years back, also get all expenses paid by the schools who lose appeals? Seems like that might dissuade people from making a fuss and appealing… I hate what this realignment plan has done to Class A and also hate that no one has yet explained why the league felt it necessary to make the classification so much smaller. It sure seems like they decided, for whatever reason, that 339 was the cutoff (since McBee at 339 is in Class A and A-F at 340 is in AA). I was told by the league that the rationale was to reduce, as much as possible, the difference between the biggest and smallest schools in each class. That’s fine, but it also really doesn’t answer why schools with enrollment between 340 and 365 were placed in Class A with the last realignment but are now being moved up. You can also carry that line of thinking to a ridiculous degree. Why stop with A-F at 340? McBee has been on a roll in multiple sports for a few years, why not move them up? Lamar is a powerhouse in football and baseball, why not shuffle them on up and really give the smallest of the small a chance? Of course moving anybody up means you’re INCREASING the gap between the biggest and smallest in AA. AAAAA has three outsized behemoths in Wando (4,300-plus students), Dorman (3,300-plus students) and Summerville (3,000-plus students) with the fourth biggest school in the state (Carolina Forest) having 2,400 students. There’s enormous gap between the top three and number four and an epic chasm between those top three and the 40-some schools in AAAAA, but that class wasn’t made smaller? Why not? What’s the difference? Yes, Lewisville, as the biggest school in Class A, had a very good athletic year in 2016- ’17, but it wasn’t unbeatably dominant in all sports. They won a state title in baseball, played for one in boys basketball and made nice runs in some other sports, but that’s it. The results did not bear out the need to move them or H-P up or to keep A-F up. Maybe the league thinks the really small schools, the ones with 170 or fewer students just can’t compete with someone that big. In some sports they can, but you CAN NOT make a classification small enough for a school with under 100 students to be competitive in everything. You certainly shouldn’t build your entire realignment in a way that tries to cater to those few tiny outliers. What we’re left with is a smaller Class A in general and a much smaller Class A in terms of teams that play football (only in the high 20s). You and I can both look at who is left and pretty much announce what the state title match-ups will be in some sports. Many Class A schools did not support Lewisville, Dixie, H-P or A-F being in Class A, as it clears the way for them to compete for state titles in some sports. That’s a narrow view, though. Yes, the chances of winning it all in baseball and softball and basketball are higher now…but the odds of winning it in the majority of sports will be non-existent playing against AA competition. If they haven’t realized that yet, they will next year. Suggested reading… Cross and Timberland basically took turns stomping on one another’s faces in a physical, defensive battle. Nobody has a better resume at this point than St. John’s, with the possible exception of George O’Leary. Hey so I’m not the only person who doesn’t care for the new realignment plan. Also, my blog is being assy and not letting me put links where I want them, so just copy and paste this link I guess... http://www.goupstate.com/sports/20170905/district-4-seeking-answers-on-union-countys-move-to-class-3a Seriously, Braxton Wedgeworth would have his sweater sleeves tied around his neck as he gets ready to work on his backhand at the tennis club and would totally be dating the head cheerleader on whom the band nerd had a huge crush in an 80s film. Again with the cut and paste crap... thetandd.com/sports/t-d-region-sports-bethune-bowman-shuts-out-north/article_c58a205e-c29a-5ed7-9ce7-4ee8fe730ed8.html
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TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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