Southside Christian- 49
Dixie- You’ve heard of the loneliest number? Subtract one from that. McCormick- 22 Blackville-Hilda- 20 Ware Shoals- 20 Great Falls- 6 Lewisville- 62 Whitmire- 6 Lamar- 47 Eau Claire- Not many. Not many at all. None, actually. Pageland Central- 21 McBee- 18 Timmonsville- 50 North Central- 21 Calhoun County- 42 Hunter-Kinard-Tyler- 36 Wagener-Salley- 22 Bethune-Bowman- C.A. Johnson- 28 North- 8 Woodland- 27 Williston-Elko- 26 C.E. Murray- 36 Oceanside Collegiate Academy- 19 Scotts Branch- 12 Holy crap Bamberg-Ehrhardt didn’t score. Aynor- 46 Creek Bridge- Ladies and gentlemen…BILLY PRESTON!!!! Latta- 50 East Clarendon- 21 Loris- 14 Green Sea-Floyds- 6 (OT) Johnsonville- 14 Hannah-Pamplico- 8 Hemingway- 54 Andrews- 31 Lake View- 29 Mullins- 22 Breakdown- It was another week fraught with non-region, “up” games and Class A schools posted a 5-9 record in such contests. One of those wins fell in the “no bleepity bleepin’ bleep Sherlock” category as Lamar laid the wood to Eau Claire. A couple were more note-worthy, including Hemingway firmly establishing itself as one of Class A’s top three teams with a rout of a good AA Andrew squad. The way Tigers went about dismantling Andrews shows how well-rounded they are and how many different ways they can go about crushing your soul and making you question your participation in team sports. They scored twice on defense (on a fumble return by Micah Bryant and an interception return by Darius Taylor) and had another forced turnover that set up an easy score (another pick and run by Taylor). Kason Soloman ran by a kickoff for a score and QB Troy Singletary accounted for four touchdowns. They clicked off three touchdowns in under five minutes at the end of the first half to basically put this one on ice. So, Hemingway has now soundly thrashed three schools of higher classification to begin the campaign (scoring 52 points a game while doing so) and will likely make it four sound higher classification thrashings this week against Waccamaw then face a stiff test with a game at C.E. Murray…Probably the biggest surprise among Class A’s five “up” wins was Scotts Branch shutting out the second ranked team in AA (Bamberg-Ehrhardt). That brought about a “someone is drunk and tweeting from the game” vibe for a while, but the 12-0 score I saw was in fact legitimate. Marquise Williams ran for both of the Eagles’ touchdowns and Scotts Branch forced four turnovers. Now, B-E hasn’t scored a ton of points this year, they’ve run the ball well and played outstanding defense, but to hold them to the type of score I make fun of on the scoreboard that opens my week in review is incredibly impressive. I wasn’t sure what to make of Scotts Branch through their first two games when the handily beat a struggling Denmark-Olar team and lost badly to a pretty fair AAA Manning squad. Now, they have three winnable games coming up that could get them to 5-1 before they end the year with a murderer’s row of Bethune-Bowman, St. John’s, C.E. Murray and Cross. That stretch will tell the tale, I think…Haven’t been able to find a ton info on the other two up wins, but Lake View over Mullins wasn’t a stunner. De’Ante Bridgett threw for 216 yards and two touchdowns for the Wild Gators, who have clicked off three straight nice wins since dropping the opener to Latta. They’ve got the Charleston County Charter Academy for Smoked Porcine Consumption (the school is across the street from Scott’s, so that would certainly be my major if I went there) this week, then a scrappy Green Sea-Floyds team. Don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but the team’s next real challenge after that probably won’t come until the season finale against Hemingway, which will most likely decide a region title, playoff seeding and other such relevant things...The other “up” victory was Timmonsville sticking a nanner up North Central’s tailpipe in a 50-21 whipping. Haven’t been able to find much on the Whirlwinds this year, but thus far they’ve gone blowout loss (Wilson), blowout win (East Clarendon), blowout loss (Lee Central), blowout win. They’ve got what could be challenging games against Hannah-Pamplico and Scotts Branch on deck. Just remember the date October 6 for Timmonsville. That’s when they play McBee in what looks like an increasingly winnable game that could send the Whirlwinds to the playoffs. Thiiiiiiiis close- We had three games come down to the final play last week. One of those was a bit of a head-scratcher for me, that being Hannah-Pamplico’s 14-8 loss to Johnsonville. Granted, the Sausages (which is what I’ve decided I’ll be calling Johnsonville from now on) are a AA team, but they’d already gotten smoked (pun fully intended) by a couple of Class A schools in Lake View and Hemingway. H-P got a first-quarter touchdown pass from Cameron Profit and a safety and led 8-0 going into the fourth, but gave up a pair of late touchdowns, including one as time expired. That has to sting for a team that grew accustomed last year to being on the giving end of heart-breaking, last-second losses. After they gave Lamar a very competitive game in the opener and trucked Marion, I thought H-P had a shot to be a contender in the lowerstate. Now, the Raiders are a conundrum, wrapped in a mystery, deep fried in question marks and served on a bed of second-guesses at the WTH Diner…Green Sea-Floyds, for the second straight week, was on the verge a quality victory, but fell in overtime to Loris 14-6. A lot of their wounds were self-inflicted in the form of 12 penalties and multiple turnovers, including one in OT that ended things. Still, they’ve played really tough defensively in all three games and they got a touchdown run from Bubba Elliot, who sounds for all the world like he ought to be running a heat race at a dirt track in the Willie’s Wings and Deer Cooler Chevy. They’ll do battle in the next two weeks against Military Magnet and Camden Military (see what I did there, I’m pretty sure you do) before tangling with Lake View…HKT had what sounded like an incredibly entertaining game with Calhoun County before falling 42-36. They had a shot to win it on the last play but a Devante Scott Hail Mary pass that would have tied it with a shot to win was dropped in the end zone. WAMP WAMP. Still, great effort by the Trojans in general and Scott in particular. He threw for 240 yards and two touchdowns and ran for a score. Brian Youmans had a long interception return. HKT is 0-3, but it’s an ambitious 0-3 against a schedule full of bigger schools. Their match-up with Wagener-Salley this week will be interesting…Speaking of the folks from Chiltinburg, the War Eagles moved to 3-0 with an impressive 22-0 win over the Mr. T haircuts from Bethune-Bowman. Have not found an account of that game anywhere, but to blank what had been a very potent and high-scoring offense at B-B was a good day’s work. If anybody saw that one in person, I’d love to hear how it went down. Quick hits…C.E. Murray did not allow a single yard rushing to Oceanside Collegiate. Was unaware until I was researching this game that Oceanside’s mascot is the Landsharks. Unsavory lot from what I hear, they hang out in local bars and they feed right after dark (UPDATE) Was sent a write-up on this game last night. The Landsharks were circlin' around the War Eagles early, building up a 19-0 first quarter lead. They weren't able to keep their dreams afloat, though, with C.E. Murray completely blanking them from that point on and hanging 36 on the board. Darius Rush scored four of those touchdowns, which is to say he did normal Darius Rush stuff…I took in Lewisville’s big win over Whitmire. If you haven’t already, familiarize yourself with the work of Quentin Sanders, a scary, do-everything football cyborg who plays for the Lions. He went for 238 total yards and five touchdowns without touching the ball in the fourth quarter, he’s averaging well over 200 total yards per game, has 12 touchdowns in four contests and if you watch his Whitmire highlights and know where to look, you’ll find your intrepid blogging buddy taking notes and shooting video on the sidelines…Congrats to McCormick on getting its first victory, a 22-20 triumph over Blackville-Hilda. Mataeo Durant, who belongs squarely in the scary gridiron cyborg category with Quentin Sanders had 123 yards and two touchdowns on only 14 carries AND led his team tackles. They’ve played as brutal a schedule as almost anyone and continue that trend with a game against Allendale-Fairfax before diving into region play, where they will be a big favorite in every game they play. Suggested reading… I think if a coach goes out of his way to note twice in one story that his team got “knocked in the mouth” things didn’t go well for him that evening. You can read capsules on Wagener-Salley, North and HKT here, or you can be ignorant for the rest of your life. Don’t make me no nevermind either way, Jimbo. Hemingway has thus far proven itself to be superior to its opposition, vanquishing yet another challenger with extreme prejudice. Did McBee show some improvement Friday or is Pageland really down? Or is it both? Or neither? Or was their game an elaborate farce, acted out according to a script in an airport hangar in Mexico? The truth is out there. I’m not a coach, but Mataeo Durant would get 14 carries a quarter instead of per game if I was, which is perhaps one of the reasons I’m not… Lewisville beat Whitmire Friday and you can get an idea of what happened here, but take anything this hack says with a MAJOR grain of salt. Feedback, ideas, love letters and invitations to pound sand can be left in the comment section, tweeted to @CNR_Sports or emailed to [email protected]
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TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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