Manning – The 2nd Annual FTC Jamboree was held on Friday at Manning High School’s Ramsey Stadium. It featured four 2-quarter scrimmages with schools from both the South Carolina Independent School Association and the South Carolina High School League.
The scrimmages on the mild, but sticky, evening saw Williamsburg Academy beat Clarendon Hall 24-0, Carvers Bay edge Lee Central 6-0, Laurence Manning Academy top Orangeburg-Wilkinson 14-0 and East Clarendon defeat Ridgeland Secondary Academy of Excellence 14-6.
WILLIAMSBURG 24, CLARENDON HALL 0
Clarendon Hall, a SCISA Class A school, got the football first, starting at its 25-yard line. The Saints moved into Williamsburg territory with a few first downs behind the running of running back Darious Aiken, a senior who rushed for 1,451 yards and 18 touchdowns last season.
CH was facing a fourth down when quarterback Brock Mathis was intercepted by the Stallions’ JD Skolar at the WA 34. Skolar returned it 66 yards for a touchdown. Wes Smith added the extra point to make it 7-0.
“We definitely got off to a very good start,” said first-year Clarendon Hall head coach Todd Larrimer. “I was definitely pleased with that first drive. I put us in the wrong pass play with two high safeties (on the interception). That was a big momentum shift. That's the thing I was looking to see. After some adversity, we've got to respond a little bit better.”
The Saints had to punt after three plays on the ensuing possession. The Stallions, the defending SCISA AA state champions, started at their 31 with running back Camden Moore breaking off a 25-yard run He would later score on a 14-yard run with 34 seconds left in the first quarter.
Teague Ward, the third returning member of the WA offensive backfield along with Moore and quarterback Conrad Balder, made it 21-0 with a 7-yard TD run in the second quarter. Although no rushing was allowed with any part of the kicking game, Williamsburg’s Smith did boot a 35-yard field goal for the final points.
Tyler Boyd, who will be in his first season as head coach of the Stallions when they open on the road against Palmetto Christian on August 25, was happy with his team’s performance.
“I thought everything went pretty well,” Boyd said. “We struggled a little bit defensively at the beginning, but we got a big play when we needed it from JD.
“I also thought we did a pretty good job offensively,” he added. “We ran the ball well and the offensive line did a good job. There’s some things we’ve got to clean up, but it was pretty good.”
Clarendon Hall opens its season on Friday, August 18, at Thomas Sumter Academy. Larrimer said his team needs to condition better than it has, but he isn’t upset with its performance heading into the regular season.
“There are a couple of tweaks we have to make, but that's what these games are supposed to be for,” he said, “I'm not nervous or unhappy about anything that happened today. We've got to look at film, fix it up and go from there.”
CARVERS BAY 6, LEE CENTRAL 0
This was a scrimmage in which neither SCHSL Class A Carvers Bay or AA Lee Central got much deeper than the opponent’s 40 until the Bears’ final possession. That’s when they put together a 64-yard touchdown drive that took 15 plays and ate over seven minutes off the clock.
The series started with Stallions linebacker Ezekiel Blake dropping quarterback Kenneth Bateman for a 10-yard loss. The drive was extended, however, when LCHS was called for defensive pass interference on third down and long for an automatic first down.
CBHS began to mix the pass and run to move down the field. A 16-yard run by running back Kenneth Heyward gave it a first down at the Lee Central 14. Four plays later, Bateman threw a 16-yard scoring pass to fullback Kimon White.
“I'll never complain if we come away with a W, but we do have a lot of work to do,” said Carvers Bay head coach Matthew Richard. “We were a little sloppy, penalties kind of got in our way. Overall, we executed when we needed to. I thought we did OK.
“Kenneth Bateman (a 3-year starter) started making things work with his legs at quarterback on the final drive. The receivers caught the ball, the O line started picking up.”
Richard thought his defense, which returns just four starters, did a good job handling Lee Central’s run-heavy Wing-T offense.
“Our guys took the punch that they gave us,” he said. “Anytime you go up against a Wing T, a team with the size of Lee Central that punched us dead in the mouth, you wonder what will happen. I wanted to make sure we were going to respond because we're going to get that all season.”
Stallions head coach Justin Danner was happy with his the play of his defense.
“I thought the defense did a really good job,” Danner said. “I thought we tackled well. I thought they responded to some tough situati8osn we got put in a little bit with some bad snaps. I was very happy with how the defense responded tonight.”
The LCHS offensive performance was a bit of a different story
“We had some spots where we did a really nice job, but it was mostly self-inflicted,” Danner said. “We had three high snaps and that really killed some drives for us. Hopefully we can bet back going into next week and clean up some stuff.
I thought the offensive line did a pretty neat job tonight except for the snaps. I thought we moved them pretty good up front, stayed on our blocks up front. But in order for us to get better, we've got to take care of the football. Those are drive killers.”
Lee Central opens its season by traveling to Chesterfield on August 18. Carvers Bay plays host to Fairfield Central on August 18.
LAURENCE MANNING 14, ORANGEBURG-WILKINSON 0
Laurence Manning, the runner-up in SCISA AAAA last season, got both a defensive touchdown and an offensive touchdown from Tyler June to defeat SCHSL AAA Orangeburg-Wilkinson 14-0.
The defensive touchdown came on O-W’s first offensive possession of the scrimmage. That’s when June, who plays both defensive back and quarterback, picked up a fumble and returned it 30 yards for a touchdown.
The Bruins drove deep into LMA territory behind quarterback DeVontre’ Crum. However, the drive eventually stalled out.
“They pushed us around a little bit early,” Swampcats head coach Will Furse said of the O-W offense. Our second drive was kind of rough defensively, but then we bowed up as they got close to the red zone. We got a stop and then we came out and kind of shut the door on them after that.”
Laurence Manning’s offensive touchdown was a 3-yard run by June. It ended a nice 12-play, 70-yard scoring drive. The drive started with June completing a 28-yard pass to wide receiver Josiah Burson. They also connected another time for 14 yards.
“We did some good things,” Furse said. “We've got some things we need to clean up. They came out in a little different defensive than we expected so I was proud of our offensive line and the way they responded. We had time to pass, that was good. I thought the quarterbacks, both Tyler and (freshman) Grainger (Powell) both performed well.
“Josiah Burson had a good game on both sides of the football. Tyler, he can do so much. I thought Ian Harris ran the ball pretty well, and so did Tyler. We had a few creases and we did a good job of hitting those.”
Orangeburg-Wilkinson head coach Chris Carter saw some good things from his team, but he sees more areas in which it needs improvement.
“We want to improve and get better each week,” Carter said. “I want to see a little bit more from our quarterbacks (Crum and Kywaun Bookhart) We need more leadership from our linebackers. I thought our offensive line was good in sports and I thought our sophomore running back, Derrick Thomas, ran the ball well.
“I think we definitely want to shore up our defensive line play, shore up our quarterback play. We want to make sure we solidify our running back position. We’ve got some guys who we feel can help us do that.”
O-W plays host to White Knoll on August 18 to open the season. LMA will also start up on August 18 by hosting Lake City.
EAST CLARENDON 14, RIDGELAND 6
After a scoreless first quarter, the offenses got going in the second quarter. It started with SCHSL AA Ridgeland getting an 11-yard scoring pass from quarterback Devin Fields to wide receiver Wesley Jones, who made a tremendous catch with 8:01 left in the second quarter.
Class A East Clarendon, under first-year head coach Larry Cornelius tied it when quarterback Anton Bennett threw a middle screen to running back Rod Shaw. He went 66 yards for the TD to make it 6-6 with 3:47 left.
“It was the right time to call it,” Cornelius said. “I didn't know we were going to get that many yards off a screen though.”
Ridgeland was unable to move the football out of its territory and went for a first down on fourth down in its territory. The ball was snapped over the head of Fields, and ECHS was able to take over at the Jaguar 9 with 37 seconds left.
On the second play, Shaw went nine yards for the score with 7 seconds to go. He also ran for the 2-point conversion.
Cornelius said his team has to quick inflicting so many wounds to itself.
“Defensively we played pretty well,” said the former Lakewood head coach. “We just kept shooting ourselves in our foot. We had three encroachments, six total penalties on defense. Our freshmen corner(back)s got beat a couple of times, but they’re young and have to learn from that.
We were punching it, we were running the ball really well. We just kept hurting ourselves. The good news is Everything we did tonight was correctible.”
Ridgeland head coach Rodney Barr was thankful his team will be entering the regular season with a healthy roster. He will also have quarterback Maurice Brown ready to go for the season opener on the road against St. John’s High on August 18. Brown did not participate in the scrimmage due to a family issue. He passed for 1,503 yards and rushed for 971 last season.
“There were some good things, some bad things for sure,” Barr said. “The game got a little sloppy there at the end. I still feel like we're going in the right direction.
“I feel like the kids that we have and the coaching staff that we have going into this game against St. John's will help us do that.”
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