When Green Sea-Floyds Coach Donnie Kiefer and his players looked across the table at Monday’s state championship press conference they didn’t just see an opponent. They hope they were looking at their future.
“We want to become a championship team. We want people to think of us like they do Lamar,” said Trojans sophomore nose tackle Xavier Edwards. Today’s Class A state championship football game will pit the upstart against the dynasty, a program striving to become a consistent power vs. one that already is. Until this year, the greatest season in program history at Green Sea-Floyds was an 8-4 season in 1984. The Trojans had never made it past the second round of the playoffs until this year, suffered a decade drought in terms of even making the post-season and numerous winless campaigns. That started to change when Kiefer arrived on campus last season. “I like going to programs that are down. I love going places where people think it can’t be done,” said Kiefer, who coached in North Carolina for 31 years. The team went 6-6 and recorded a rare playoff win in Kiefer’s debut in 2017. Judged against its entire history, that stood as a great season. Kiefer, though, didn’t want his players thinking that way. “I told the guys 6-6 was not something to be satisfied with. That should be considered a down year. I told them if they were OK with mediocrity, they needed to do something else,” Kiefer said. His players took that message to heart, pouring themselves into Kiefer’s rigorous offseason strength and speed program. “We bought in. We came together as a team. We don’t play for individual stats. Wins are the only stat we care about,” said senior lineman Tyson Sorrell. There were early indications that the Trojans might be in for a special season, with the team beating Loris in overtime early in the season, the first time in 34 years Green Sea-Floyds beat its neighbor and rival. They didn’t get the chance to build on the momentum of that win, though. Fate and nature intervened in the form of Hurricane Florence. The initial impact wasn’t awful, but the residual flooding closed the school for three weeks and kept the team off the field for nearly a month. That was bad enough, but some players lost their homes. Center Lucas McDowell was one of those. He and his family were helpless to do much more than sit and watch the water creep up Highway 9 and eventually flood their home with more than three feet of water. Kiefer kept tabs on his players to make sure they were OK, but the players also checked up on each other. “I was worried about those boys,” Edwards said. The team communicated regularly on social media and the primary topic of conversation was not the stark reality they were dealing it, it was a return to the field, which would be as close to a return to normalcy as possible under the circumstances. They missed the camaraderie and family vibe and were itching to get back on the field. They finally did get back and had to take the field against Timmonsville on four days of practice. Their conditioning had regressed, they were sore, but they gutted out a close win. Kiefer said to succeed in spite of all they had faced and dealt with showed the toughness present up-and-down the roster.They lost the next week, but Sorrell said after that, the team got its legs back under it and hasn’t lost since. They began their current seven-game winning streak with a thrilled against Hemingway. Down 21-14, the Trojans scored a touchdown with three seconds left, immediately lined up and went for two. They got it, they won the game and that seems to have provided a springboard. Their lowest point total since then was the 44 they hung on defending lowerstate champ Baptist Hill. They’ve scored more than 60 points four times. Lamar has also had to deal with adversity during the year. They missed two weeks of school and were off the field for three weeks because of the hurricane. When they returned, the opponent was Gray Collegiate. Silver Foxes quarterback Cam Galloway suffered a season-ending injury early in the first quarter and the overall rust from the layoff may have shown against a team that missed little or no time. Lamar lost to Gray, marking the team’s first regular-season loss in three years. “We weren’t where we needed to be then,” said Lamar Coach Corey Fountain. “We couldn’t practice for almost two weeks. The practices needed to be tougher. That threw us for a loop.” Losing Galloway meant some changes had to be made to the offensive attack. J.J. Langley stepped in, but did not possess the running skills of Galloway. That meant throwing the ball a bit more. Langley proved a good caretaker and showed he could bounce back from adversity. Against Dixie last week in the upperstate championship game, he threw a pick six early on and had another pass intercepted and returned to the one to set up another score. Lamar trailed 14-0 at halftime, but he made a couple of big plays throwing the ball in the second half to rally his team to an 18-14 win. The defense, of course, did it’s part, holding a powerful Dixie offense to less than 90 yards of total offense. “J.J. had a rough start, but you got to stay resilient and battle your tail off,” Fountain said. The two teams that will take the field at Benedict today look a lot alike. Both are physically tough teams that want to run the ball and impose their will on opposition. “We have the mentality that nobody’s going to beat us,” said Lamar lineman Shane Amerson. That’s a well-founded feeling for a team looking to win its third title in four years. Green Sea-Floyds isn’t to that level yet but they’ve taken a big step in that direction with the promise of more to come. Kiefer said he needed to look no further than across the table Monday to see where he wants his team to go. “It’s very difficult to get to state, let alone four years in-a-row. It’s a program, not just an occasional good team. It’s where we want to take our program to,” Kiefer said. Today, he has his chance.
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November 2021
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