By Lonnie Turner
With the leading defensive player and one of the top receivers sitting out of the game with the Loris Lions Friday night, Coach Jackie Hayes and his coaching staff reached back and did a little reloading of the team and handily recorded another Region Championship with a 37-0 blanking of the Lions.
Unlike a week ago in Lake City when the Cats and Panthers put near record offensive numbers on the scoreboard, the Nasty Cat defense completely shut down the potent offense of the Lions allowing only 56 yards in total offense in contrast to 502 allowed last week. The Wildcat dynamic duo of Johnny Allen and Jalen Williams ran rough shod over the Lion defense with 145 and 144 yards respectively. Allen scored three touchdowns and Williams added two. After Allen, a 5’7, 175 pound senior gave the Wildcats a 21-0 lead through the first half and two minutes into the third quarter, Williams went to work in the rest of the way ripping off 113 yards on 17 touches in  the second half to go with his first half total of 31 yards. Quarterback Brayden Hawkins kept the Lions defense out of sync completing ten of sixteen pass attempts for an additional 97 yards.
Ty’Quan Porter led the receiving corps with five catches for 50 yards and Allen was on the receiving end of three Hawkins passes for 37 yards as the offense put 386 yards on  the stats sheet.
Running out of the “Wildcat formation” (the football is snapped directly to a running back, instead of to the quarterback) Allen capped a 67-yard drive in seven plays with a 7-yard touchdown run to start the scoring. The drive took nearly three minutes off the clock in the first quarter. There was only one other touchdown in the first half, a ten-yard scamper by Allen at the halfway point of the second period. Drew Covington was perfect with his second of four extra point kicks to give the Cats a 14-0 halftime lead.
After the intermission, the Wildcats scored on all four possessions with Williams doing most of the work in the Dillon backfield. After taking the opening kick-off of the half, the Cats ran off eight plays with Allen scoring his third touchdown of the game from 2-yards out.
Dillon’s Khw’Dief Manning’s third intercepted pass of the season set up the next touchdown with Williams going the final eight yards, again out of the Wildcat formation, but the extra point failed when the snap from the center was fumbled.
A 14-yard punt from the Loris one-yard line to the Loris 15, set up the next score, a 23-yard field goal by Drew Covington gave the Cats a 30-0 lead with only 2 minutes remaining in the third quarter. It was Covington’s second three-pointer of the season and his four extra points puts him in fourth place on the scoring chart with 48 points.
The final score of the evening came on a 20-yard run by Williams that put , the fishing touch on a 65-yard ball controlled drive tat took seven minutes off the clock.
With Shrine Bowler and leading tackler Jermaine McDaniel on the bench after re-injuring his shoulder in the Lake City game, Zareon Hayes and Jatoreus Maninng stepped up with eight and seven take-downs respectively and were in on a pair of quarterback sacks. Rodney Owens, taking over for McDaniel, also recorded two half sacks of the Loris quarterback.
The Wildcats will be home for their final regular season home game Friday as they take on the Aynor Blue jackets