Crescent- 34
Calhoun Falls Charter- Nam Dixie- 48 Ware Shoals- Considerably less than 48 Fox Creek- 27 McCormick- 16 Wagener-Salley- 62 Whitmire- 7 Lamar- 39 Hannah-Pamplico- 21 Lewisville- 30 Andrew Jackson- 6 Lakewood- 30 McBee- 12 Wilson- 40 Timmonsville- 6 Scott’s Branch- 50 Denmark-Olar- 6 Allendale-Fairfax- 22 Estill- Love (if they were playing tennis) Fairfield Central- 51 Hunter-Kinard-Tyler- 6 Batesburg-Leesville- 40 Ridge Spring-Monetta- 6 The Battlin’ Barts- 24 Williston-Elko- 6 Branchville- 62 Charleston Charter Technical State School of cipherin’ and gazintas- 22 Bethune-Bowman- 48 Military Magnet- 27 St. John’s- 34 John’s Island- 28 C.E. Murray- 22 Kingstree- 8 Cross- 40 Burke- 0 Mullins- 42 Creek Bridge-Wikipedia isn’t always accurate but seems to be on this topic. Johnsonville- 33 East Clarendon- 7 Green Sea-Floyds- 31 East Columbus- SING IT D-WIGHT! Latta- 26 Lake View- 22 Breakdown- As is always the case early in the season, a lot of Class A teams played up in Week White Candy Bar. Class A teams went 4-10 against schools from higher classifications. Your winners included Lewisville over Andrew Jackson, C.E. Murray over Kingstree, Cross over Burke and St. John’s over James Island. The last of those is fairly impressive, since it represents a 1A school slaying a 5A dragon….um, I don’t know if James Island is a dragon necessarily. I doubt they fly, breathe fire and engage in other dragon activities. They are definitely a lizard, maybe even one big enough to bite you and break the skin. Still, that’s a school from our state’s tiniest classification whacking one from the biggest, which is a noteworthy achievement. I’m struggling to find a written account of that game, so if you were on hand I’d love to know how that went down…Lewisville’s game with Andrew Jackson was a little more closely contested than the score would indicate, but the Lions defense (which has three players with Division I offers) held the Vols to under 130 yards of total offense. Quentin Sanders, a do-everything football ninja that comes complete with throwing stars, had 260 total yards of offense and accounted for four touchdowns for the Lions…Cross won big thanks to two touchdown runs each from Nate Walker (Wofford commit) and Koby Lisbon and also because they were playing Burke. I mean, not to be mean about it, but they’ve got one win in the last five years. Cross will play up the next two weeks against Timberland and Kingstree…Haven’t seen an account of C.E. Murray’s win over Kingstree but that win isn’t a shocker either. I think the War Eagles are underrated (more on that in a minute), they have good number out for new coach Chad Wilkes, they’ve tweaked the offense a bit, Darius Rush is probably better than you at football etc. and so on and whatnot…McBee’s loss is an interesting one. Truthfully, a Class A team losing to a AAAA squad shouldn’t be attention-getting at all, given the enormous disparity in student enrollment. However, they’d beaten Lakewood each of the past two years fairly handily. I’ve talked to a lot of people who expect the Panthers to completely fall off the map this year (I’m not among them) because the class of athletes that suddenly made them contenders in multiple sports out of nowhere has graduated. I think all the Wright’s are gone.. Dashonnell, Richardo…Ben, Wilbur, the whole lot of them. It is conceivable they could open 0-4 with games against Chesterfield, Cheraw and Mullins coming up, but 0-4 against that schedule doesn’t mean you can’t contend in Class A, it means you lined up a manly schedule and suffered some in terms of wins and losses. I’ve noted before that McBee, even when bereft of talent, always has kids that play hard. Combine that with an offense you don’t see often and a couple of athletes to make it go and when it matters (namely in the region), the Panthers can still be just fine…I certainly didn’t expect to see Wagener-Salley roll Whitmire the way they did (62-7). You’ll remember than that the Stump-Whooped All-Stars got off to a big start last year, hit a swoon, finished strong then got pantsed by Lewisville in the first round of the playoffs. I wasn’t sure what to make of them, since they really didn’t beat any good teams. However, they had some major injuries down the stretch, which probably played a part. Hard not to take notice of a win like they had last week, or the fact that Kevin Johnson is basically Barry Sanders on Madden 95 (where if you just ran up the gut out of the I and bounced it to the left on every carry he’d end up with 4,000 yards rushing at the end of the year, because the game wasn’t smarter than you then like it is now…there were bugs and quirks you could exploit to embarrass your computer competition, but now it reads your mind and crap and is an impossibly cruel tormentor…also this is a lot of words to put in parenthesis) with 108 yards and three touchdowns on seven flippin’ carries…So, my double-secret Lamar informant is back for another year and he took in the opening win for the top-ranked Silver Foxes over Hannah-Pamplico. That contest was actually 26-21 at the half. Hannah-Pamplico hit two long touchdowns, which is a little atypical of Lamar. My informant thinks the team, while still very good, is a bit of a work in progress that should improve with time and may not have quite the horses it did last year when they were clearly head-and-shoulders above everyone not named Lake View. Not having a kicker who is automatic anymore is a bit of a difference too, he said. Still, very good and very deserving of that top ranking. Interested to see what happens with them facing Pageland Central this coming week. Being so competitive in the loss makes H-P worth watching too…Lake View’s loss isn’t a surprise given that Latta is awfully good and since the Wild Gators lost a jagnormous (a word I just made up) senior class from last year. That ended Class A’s longest winning streak but, you know, Dillon County always seems blessed with an abundance of large and fast school children, so I’m pretty sure they’ll be OK. Also, I’m happy to announce that I now get a vote in the S.C. Prep Media Football Poll. Maybe they thought my many years of prep sports coverage would make me an informed voter that would add something to the process. Or maybe they just want to copy off my 1A paper. Either way, I’m honored. So, below is the newest 1A poll, followed by my poll with a brief explanation of why I voted the way I did. I’ll post this every week. 1. Lamar (10) 2. Lewisville (4) 3. Hemingway (1) 4. Cross 5. St. John's 6. C.E. Murray 7. Lake View 8. Williston-Elko 9. Wagener-Salley 10. McBee Receiving votes: Dixie, Baptist Hill, Bethune-Bowman, Green Sea Floyds, Hannah-Pamplico 1. Lamar- Defending upperstate champ has name talent returning and a well-earned reputation of being a tough, physical team. Beat a good H-P team last week. 2. Lewisville- Not super deep, but the front-line talent is as good as anybody in the classification, maybe better. Holding what was a good AJ team in 2016 to 120-some yards is impressive. 3. C.E. Murray- Brian Smith laid the groundwork for success here and Wilkes should keep it going. SEC talent in Darius Rush and other returners make the War Eagles a contender. Made it to third round last year before losing to eventual champ Lake View (they were the only team to really challenge Lake View) and got to state the year before that. They belong in top three in my opinion. 4. St. John’s- Moved way up from the previous week for me. Solid 2016 campaign followed by win over a 5A team warrants that. 5. Cross-Showed last week, last season and the season before that they belong among Class A’s elite. 6. Lake View- Lost a big senior class from last year’s state title team, but no reason to drop them too far based on loss to a good AA team. 7. Hemingway- Haven’t played yet, but talk is they could be team to beat in the lowcountry. 8. Williston-Elko- Won nine games last year with a young squad. Loss to a good Barnwell team shouldn’t count too much against them. 9. Wagener-Salley-CHITTERLINGS! 10. McBee- With their schedule, could be a while before we really get to see how good they are relative to other Class A teams. Suggested reading… You can’t see Quentin Sanders because ninjas sometimes don’t want to be seen. CHITTERLINGS! Hey, Lamar remains proficient in the sport of football. Timmonsville did lose 40-6 but it was 7-6 at one point, which should count for something. Playing the boys from Berkeley County was quite a CROSS to bear for Burke. See what I did there? If you went to a game, have a stats from a game or want to tell me to pound sand, you can contact me at [email protected] or in the comment section.
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TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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