By Lonnie Turner
It was more like a track meet in Lake City Friday night when the Wildcats and Panthers got together for an important Region football game on Ward’s Field.I got tired just watching those young athletes running up and down the field. It was only the second time this writer can remember that Dillon put 70 points on a stadium scoreboard in a high school game. Stevie Lee and company lit up the Hillcrest-Dalzell board, 70-0, during the late Paul Chapman’s reign as a 4A powerhouse coach.
At the end of the first quarter, the score was deadlocked at 21 all and by the half, the two teams had piled up 663 yards in offense, with Lake City holding the edge, 375 yards to 288, but trailing 48-35 on the scoreboard. In the second half, they slowed down a little, but the Wildcats put 22 more points on the board and the Wildcat defense allowed only seven points, coming in the third quarter.
Dillon’s Johnny Allen, shunned by the coaches in the state from either post season all star classics, the Shrine Bowl and the North-South game at Myrtle Beach, rushed for a career high of 295 yards while scoring three touchdowns. Brayden Hawkins contributed 145 yards through the air and tossed three more TDs.
Lake City’s Chris Burnette completed 21 of 38 pass attempts for 262 yards and 4 touchdowns, with three coming in the first half and TyShawn Baines added 211 yards on the ground to lead the Lake City offense.
Burnette passed for two touchdowns in the early going and Baines rushed for another and the Wildcats battled back with a pair or rushing touchdowns by Allen and and Hawkins connected with KaNore McKinnon for a touchdown to tie the score at 21-21 to end end the first quarter.
The Wildcats out-scored the Panthers, 27-14, in the second quarter on touchdowns by Ty Porter (36 Yards pass), Jaylen Williams (21 yard run) and a defensive TD, plus a  special team score. Ty Porter stepped in front of a Lake City receiver at the Dillon one and raced 99 yards untouched to pay dirt and a minute and a half later, Jaylen Williams fielded a kick off at the Dillon 25 and went 75 yards for another score. For the Panthers, Bill Hanna caught a 42-yard pass from Burnette for a score and running back Tyshawn Baines threw 11 yards to quarterback Burnette on an option play  for the last score of the first half.
KaNore McKinnon caught his second TD pass of the game to start the second half, a 16-yard toss from Hawkins and Johnny Allen’s 3 yard run at the 2:04 mark, gave the Cats a 62-42 lead at the end of the third quarter. The only score in the final period was a 55-yard scamper around the Dillon side of the field, where Allen broke away from the grasps of three defenders to the Panther end-zone. Allen running  out of the Wildcat formation for the extra point, started running to his right, stopped and threw a pass back to the left to a wide open Jackson Hayes in the end zone for the two-point conversion on a play that was introduced by the late Coach Bull Lee when he called it “The Mill Hill Special!”
The Wildcats will travel for another away game as they take  on the Loris Lions this coming Friday!