Dutch Fork claims 9th state championship

By WORTHY EVANS

Contributing Writer

Columbia - If anyone is an expert in maintaining excellence in a high-school football program, it’s Tom Knotts.

The Dutch Fork head coach led the Silver Foxes to their ninth state championship with a 35-21 victory over Summerville at South Carolina State’s Oliver C. Dawson Stadium Dec. 13. While people may be quick to assume that winning state championships that often is automatic, Knotts says quite the contrary.

“The climb to the top of the mountain is much easier than staying on the top. Trust me on that,” Knotts said after the win. “We’ve got to find ways to innovate, keep them working, keep them motivated. I’ve said many times that success is a double-edged sword. It can give you a lot of confidence but it can also destroy work ethic.”

Dutch Fork, which finished the season 13-0 and outscored its opponents 509-94 this season, had such a work-ethic destruction following its 2022 state championship win. The senior leaders left that team and the young 2023 team had to battle through a 2-5 start. The Silver Foxes missed out on a region title that year, but beat region rival White Knoll to claim its eighth state-title win.

The underclassmen on that 2023 team returned with lessons learned on how to approach a football season. In all, 31 seniors on offense and defense played through 12 games without surrendering a lead. Among the senior leaders were running back Maurice Anderson with 1,177 yards and 22 touchdowns on the year, receiver Boykin Bickley with 60 catches for 1,160 yards and nine touchdowns, defensive end/linebacker Josh Smith with 96 tackles, 16 for loss, and nine sacks, and linebacker Daniel Williams with 65 stops, 28 tackles for loss, and 11 sacks.

Against Summerville, those seniors took on more adversity than they have all season—Dutch Fork fell behind 14-6 by the second quarter. After the Silver Foxes took a 6-0 lead, Jaden Cummings connected with Jaiden Kelly-Murray for an 18-yard touchdown pass and Jayven Williams broke free for a 43-yard touchdown run.

“Just stay the course,” Knotts told the team by that point. “We knew there were some things we could do and we were shooting ourselves in the foot, we were letting our emotions take over, and we did some things really I thought were uncharacteristic of the way we played this year. We played in the first half like it was our first game of the year.”

Dutch Fork did get things straight shortly afterward. Junior quarterback Ethan Offing connected with Bickley for a 19-yard touchdown pass, and then found Jalen Montgomery in the end zone for the game-tying 2-point conversion.

B.J. Platts later powered into the end zone from eight yards out to give the Silver Foxes a 21-14 lead at the half.

In the second half Offing found Bickley again for a 20-yard touchdown pass to make it 28-14.

With Cummings out because of an injury, Summerville backup quarterback Cooper Kafina hit Kelly-Murray for a 77-yard catch-and-run to get the Green Wave back within a possession.

Platts’ 38-yard TD run with two minutes left in the game secured the win for the Silver Foxes.

“This is a very deserving senior group,” Knotts said. “I wasn’t pleased with the way we won, we played with a lot of effort and the game just got a little chippy for my liking but we did come out with a ‘W’ which is always a great thing.

For Knotts, who won seven state championships at two schools in North Carolina before coming to Dutch Fork, every team is different, and every path to the end of the season requires different ways of thinking. And the longtime head coach is focused on thinking about the next year.

“I think we’re on the right track,” he said. “There was a good foundation when I got here, we just had to take it over the top and we’ve done that.”