Lamar – As the No. 1 seed from Region 5-Class A, the Lamar High School football team’s first-round game against Branchville in the state playoffs wasn’t overly impressive. That’s not the point though.
Winning is the point and that’s what the Silver Foxes did, beating Branchville 27-6 on November 3 at the LHS field.
“We were a little flat,” said Lamar head coach Stephen Burris, whose team improved to 8-3 on the season and is ranked fourth in the High School Sports Report Class A Sweet 16 poll. “A lot of that goes to Branchville. They were scheming us up and they played hard.
“It's our job as coaches to make sure they’re ready. It took a while to get going, but we finally got in a rhythm.”
Now the defense was in a rhythm that it has been in most of the season. The Silver Foxes have allowed just 150 points,
“They keep teams out of the end zone,” Burris said. “They’re what is now called bend, but don’t break. The end goal is to keep the other team out of the end zone and we do that pretty well.”
The Silver Foxes had 77 tackles for loss through the first 10 games. Senior middle linebacker Freddy Cruz was leading in tackles with 105 and had 10 TFLs. Senior defensive lineman Nazir Stevenson led in TFLs with 11 to go with 53 tackles.
Senior Otis Samuel had eight TFLs among his 38 tackles, while junior Vernon Ervin, senior Keaton Braddock and junior Freddie McCullough each had seven TFLs.
Junior Nyshaun Quillen led the team in quarterback sacks with four.
Points haven’t been easy to come by for the Lamar offense. The Silver Foxes have scored just 254 to date.
The Lamar offense is led by quarterback Zori Pierce. Through eight games in which he played, Pierce had completed 67 of 108 passes for 1,291 yards and 18 touchdowns while tossing no interceptions. He had rushed for 128 yards and three touchdowns on 31 carries.
Senior Tavis Dolford was Pierce’s leading receiver with 27 catches for 541 yards and five touchdowns in 10 games. Junior Zoom Jackson had 18 catches for 410 yards and eight touchdowns, while junior Kamon Miller had 17 catches for 171 yards and two touchdowns.
Senior running back Travion McPhail had 436 yards and six touchdowns on 98 carries to lead the rushing attack. He had seven catches for 103 yards and two more touchdowns.
While Burris is in his first year as head coach at Lamar, he is well aware of the history surrounding the storied program. He knows they are targets.
“No one feels sorry for Lamar,” said Burris, whose team will play host to Carvers Bay in the second round on November 10. “The kids want to uphold the tradition and community of this school. Hopefully our best football is ahead of us.”
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