Batesburg-Leesville off to great start

By Dennis Brunson

hssr.com Associate Editor

Batesburg-Leesville – Greg Lawson had high expectations for the Batesburg-Leesville High School football team coming into the season. The third-year Panthers head coach had nine starters back on offense and eight on defense.

Well, at the midpoint of the season Batesburg-Leesville was 5-0. The Panthers were dominant in four of those victories, but it was the one they barely won in which Lawson saw so much potential.

Batesburg-Leesville defeated perennial AA power Abbeville, now in Class A, 37-35 on the road.

“We exceeded my expectations a little bit in that game. The Abbeville game was a big step,” Lawson said of AA B-L’s second game of the year. “There were no mistakes. It was just two teams that pounded each other.

“That one was one where we exceeded, the kids stepping u0 a little more than I thought. We were never behind, leading from beginning to end.”

The Panthers outscored the opposition 218-42 in those five games. They have been able to put points on the board both running the football as well as throwing it.

When it comes to getting yards on the ground, Batesburg-Leesville hands it to running Amadre Wooden and lets him run behind a veteran offensive line. Wooden had 90 carries for 824 yards and nine touchdowns.

“He’s done real well,” Lawson said of Wooden. “I thought he was a little off in the first half (of a 48-0 win over Mid-Carolina), but he’s been very good.

“The offensive line is doing a great job. He’s not doing it by himself. He’s not getting touched until he’s 10 yards down the field a lot of times.”

The offensive line has three seniors in tackles Matthew Howard and Ty Anderson and guard Kaleb McKeiver. The other starters are juniors Preston Smith at center and Travis Gates at guard.

Quarterback Tanner Watkins has only thrown the football 45 times, but he has made the most of those chunks. He’s completed 36 passes – a completion percentage of 80 percent – for 676 yards and 10 touchdowns against just one interception. He’s averaging 15 yards an attempt and 18.8 yards per completion.

KD Whitt is a big play waiting to happen whether catching the ball or running with it. He has 13 catches for 331 yards and seven touchdowns while running the ball six times for 106 yards and three more TDs. He’s averaging 17.7 yards a carry and 25.5 yards a catch. Whitt has also returned a kickoff for a score.

Jamerius Clark had 11 catches for 148 yards and three scores.

“Basically we’ve been taking what they give us,” Lawson said. “Sometimes we use the run to set up the pass, and sometimes we use the pass to set up the run. sets up pass. It depends on what they’re playing defensively.

“If they’re lined up in man, we feel like KD Whitt and Jamerius Clark on the outside are better than their guys. If they get in our face and challenge us, dare us to throw the football, we’re going to throw it.”

The biggest challenge to Watkins came in the Abbeville game. He threw 16 passes, completing 14 of them for 267 yards and three touchdowns against no interceptions.

“Our quarterback has done a great job managing the game, doing what we ask him to do,” Lawson said. “He’s good at distributing the football.”

           Outside of the Abbeville game, the B-L defense has been lights out. It has forced 10 turnovers, recovering six fumbles and coming up with four interceptions.

           “We’ve got three shutouts, so we’ve done a real good job,” Lawson said. “We rotate a lot of people in. The defensive coaches have done a real good job of preparing them for what’s coming at them.”